Formulae selectae, or, A collection of prescriptions of eminent physicians, and the most celebrated patent medicines : together with syllabic view of mineral waters and poisons.

Date:
1818
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Formulae selectae, or, A collection of prescriptions of eminent physicians, and the most celebrated patent medicines : together with syllabic view of mineral waters and poisons. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    PREFACE. Lord Bacon has declared a multiplicity of reme- dies to be the child of ignorance. The observation is, no doubt, just; but if he had been tried by it, he would have put his own reputation at hazard; for he was as partial to polypharmacy as any of his co- temporaries; who esteemed it a medical axiom, that the more complex a prescription, the more virtues it possessed ; accordingly, it required some scores of simples to form a sovereign remedy. It is obvious enough to the most casual observer, that this is not the opinion of the present day : we run into the other extreme, and are inclined to say that the more simple, nay,the more single the prescription, the more efficient the medicine. Many physicians carry about them all the articles of the Materia Medica, which they conceive necessary to enable them to contend with every form of disease, and armed with calomel, opium, tartar emetic, and a lancet, they believe themselves qualified to combat all the ills that frail flesh is heir to. This generalising system of practising the pro- fession is believed to be more convenient to the physi- cian, than beneficial to his patient, and which the present improved state of pathology and therapeutics certainly does not warrant.