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On the influence of minute doses of mercury, combined with the appropriate treatment of various diseases, in restoring the functions of health, and the principles on which it depends / [Alexander Philips Wilson Philip].

  • Alexander Wilson Philip
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the influence of minute doses of mercury, combined with the appropriate treatment of various diseases, in restoring the functions of health, and the principles on which it depends / [Alexander Philips Wilson Philip]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    permanent relief ; it must, therefore, possess some bene- ficial tendency besides that of a mere stimulant to those surfaces. It is necessary, therefore, in order to understand the nature of the extensive influence of mercury in the cure of disease, to look for some other principle of action ; and in the peculiar effects of this medicine, compared with the well-established laws of our frame, we shall find such a principle. Although all substances capable of affecting the living animal act as stimulant or sedative, according to the degree in which they are applied, yet there is in the effect of each something peculiar to itself. Thus we have just seen that the proportion in which they possess the stimulant and sedative powers, is different in diffe- rent agents, and that the latter in some agents is chiefly exerted on the sensitive—in others, on the motive powers. These are differences easily observed and rea- dily classified. But there is an infinite variety both in the stimulant and sedative effects of different agents, which, from their number and indistinctness, cannot be reduced to any general principle of classification ; and physicians have attempted nothing farther than to divide medicines into those best suited to influence the state of different organs. Thus we speak of aperients, expectorants, diaphoretics, diuretics, &c., and we have no means of knowing the peculiar properties of each particular agent, but by observing the effects it produces. The most remarkable of the effects peculiar to mer- cury, is its influence on the liver. It is not surprising that a medicine which so powerfully influences the se- creting organs in general, should influence the secreting power of this organ; but, independently of this effect,
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