The properties and preparation of the Rio Negro sarsaparilla, and of the angustura bark, practically examined / by John Hancock.

  • Hancock, John, -approximately 1840.
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The properties and preparation of the Rio Negro sarsaparilla, and of the angustura bark, practically examined / by John Hancock. 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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    the whole, to evince rather too exclusive a preference to the chemical or chemico-mineral remedies at present in vogue^ Amongst those native plants I shoixld venture to propose the Taraxacum, or Dandelion, as a valuable addition to the com-, pound infusion of Sarsaparilla (p. 12). This plant, the Taraxacum,, is acknowledged to be a useful remedy in certain obstructions and disorders of the liver, by some eminent English physicians; and on the continent, in Germany especially, it is employed with the most decided advantage as an alterative in cutaneous affec-) tions, and many very obstinate chronic maladies, as I have been assured by Earl Stanhope, the distinguished President of the Medico-Botanical Society, who, to the more renowned and splendid talents of a statesman and a peer of the realm, unites a love of all the sciences conducive to human happiness; attaching however a more particular interest to the advancement of Medical Botany, on which subject he has manifested the most correct views and soundest intelligence : he is moreover sensibly impressed with a conviction that, in the prevalent, affection for mere descriptive botany, its more important and scientific objects have been nearly overlooked and disregarded, viz. the application of its principles to useful purposes in me- dicine, in the arts, and to domestic comforts and economy. His Lordship being absent (on the Continent) I have used this reference without permission, persuaded however, that he would not refuse his name to a discussion which involves the public good, and the objects of the Medico-Botanical Society. It may be said that I have here recommended quite a medley of remedies; I do so from a conviction, founded on experience, that, in many of those inveterate chronic maladies (and acute, ones also), it is vain to expect> from single remedies, anything, more than partial and very limited results. The simplified practice of the present day is not calculated to produce any great impression or benefit in cases like those to which both duty and humanity most frequently call the attention of medical men in the Colonies.* * The truth of this I doubt not will be recognised by several of the more