An experimental history of the materia medica, or, of the natural and artificial substances made use of in medicine : containing a compendious view of their natural history, and account of their pharmaceutic properties, and an estimate of their medicinal powers, so far as they can be ascertained by experience, or by rational induction from their sensible qualities / by William Lewis.

  • Lewis, William, 1708-1781.
Date:
1784
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An experimental history of the materia medica, or, of the natural and artificial substances made use of in medicine : containing a compendious view of their natural history, and account of their pharmaceutic properties, and an estimate of their medicinal powers, so far as they can be ascertained by experience, or by rational induction from their sensible qualities / by William Lewis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    agreeable. They were all formerly directed as officinals ; and occalionally made ufe of, for abating heat, quenching thirft, and preventing or cor- redling a tendency to putrefaction, in febrile and fcorbutic diforders; but at prefent are lefs regarded, other vegetable acids having in good meafure fupplied their place. The leaves yield, upon expreffion, a large proportion of thick, turbid, green-coloured juice : w^hich, on ftanding till the feces have fubfided, becomes clear and reddilh, and in tafte more gratefully acid than the herbs in fubftance. This is one of the moft elegant preparations of forrel for medicinal ufe, and may be advantageoufly joined, in fcorbutic cafes, to the juices of the acrid herbs : the inhabitants of Greenland, who are very fubjedt to thefe diftempers, are faid to employ, with good fuccefs, a mixture of forrel and cochlearia faj. Greateft part of the acid matter of forrel may be obtained alfo in the form of a concrete fait; by infpiffating the depurated juice to a due confiftence, and fetting it to cryftallize. This fait is fuppofed to ap- proach to the nature of tartar : from which, however, it obvioufly differs, in being more acid, more eafily dilToluble in water fbj, and much lefs, if at all, purgative. The roots of the forrels have a roughifh bitterifh tafte, without any acidity. They have been looked upon as aperient and diuretic ; and, in thefe intentions, have been fometimes made ingredients in watery in- fulions and decodlions, to which they communicate a reddifh hue : the garden forrel gives the lighteft, the common wild fort the deepeft red. It is obfervable, that acid liquors, which in general heighten vegetable reds, deftroy this red tinfture of forrel roots : alkalies change it to a purplifh ; chalybeate folutions, to a deep green. The feeds of forrel are very flightly, if at all, aftringent, without acidity or bitternefs. They had long a place in the fhops, as ingredients in fome of the old alexeterial compofitions, from which they are now defervedly expunged. A c E r U M. ACETUM Pharm. Lond. & Edinb. Vinegar : a vegetable acid liquor, produced by fermentation ; either diredtly from fermentable (aj Bartholinus, Haffnienf. 1671. ohf. 9. (h) Neumann, Chemical vjorks, p. 257, 424. F juices