A drug is its own antidote / by William Sharp.

  • Sharp, William, 1805-1896.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A drug is its own antidote / by William Sharp. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    by Dr. Lauder Brunton and Sir J. Fayrer, which have, among their conclusions, the two following:— The blood appears to remain fluid after death . . . when a large quantity of the cobra poison has been directly injected into the circulation. And, The blood undergoes either partial or complete coagu- lation . . . when a small quantity only of the cobra poison has been injected into a vein or an artery. Sixteen years have elapsed since these remarks were made; the subject has lain dormant until other matters more pressing were disposed of; the time has arrived for its resumption, and the question is now proposed, not as a suggestion, or hypothesis in the useful sense, nor as a deduction reached by reasoning, but as a fact proved by experiment. In Essay LII— Therapeutics ought to become a Science, published in 1888, in the portion devoted to the contrary action of groups of larger and smaller doses of the same drug, and which is called Antipraxy (contrary action), the following criticism is quoted from a letter by a University Professor of Pathology:— May I remark that the doctrine of Antipraxy is opposed to all that we at present know regarding the action of remedies, and that you do not bring any evi- dence that is worth a moment's consideration in sup- port of it ? To-day (Sept. 2, 1891), while reading the 16th of John Hunter's Lectures on the Principles of Sur- gery,* a paragraph was met with which excited the liveliest interest; it is as follows :— Medicines affect the living principle by their stimu- lant or sedative qualities only, unless they act chemi- cally as caustics; they have the effect of irritating or quieting, and these two contrary effects are generally to be found in the same substance, the difference resulting from the difference of quantity; thus a small quantity of heat relaxes and softens, but a larger quantity will stimulate. A stimulus is what either causes a natural action, or increases one which has already taken place, or excites an action contrary to one present, as by giving an opiate when a patient cannot sleep. Medicines may either stimulate or irritate; such as increase the natural * fForlcs of John Hunter, by J. F. Palmer, 1835, vol. i, page 477.