Volume 1

General therapeutics and materia medica adapted for a medical text-book with indexes of remedies and of diseases and their remedies / by Robley Dunglison.

  • Dunglison, Robley, 1798-1869.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: General therapeutics and materia medica adapted for a medical text-book with indexes of remedies and of diseases and their remedies / by Robley Dunglison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    execution, as well as that of liis companion, were suspended for two nionths; in which time the popular clamor for their lives so far sub- sided, that they were both pardoned by the executive of the United States.” This is perhaps the ne plus ultra of medical philanthropy, certainly not of medical science ! From all that has been said, it is manifest, that idiosyncrasy must have much power in modifying the operation of medicines. It is, consequently, important for the practitioner to be aware of this; and it may not be amiss for him to make specific inquiries when he wishes to administer such drugs as are apt to disagree with certain individuals,—of which opium and its preparations, and calomel, are perhaps the most prominent. 4. Habit.—By this is understood an acquired disposition in the living body, become permanent, and as imperious as an}^ of those primitive acts, which have been also, in another sense, denominated habits. When a function is over and over again exerted to the utmost extent of which it is capable, both as regards energy and activity, or is exerted beyond the ordinary extent, it becomes more and more easy of execution; the organ is better adapted for its pro- duction ; and, it may become so habituated to this over-exertion, that a real want may be engendered, a “second nature,” and the individual may feel uncomfortable, unless the organ is subjected to the accustomed action. In the same way, by habit, the action of an organ ma^^be diminished, until ultimately it is but little adapted for the exercise of its full power. The knowledge of these facts has led one of the most gifted and ingenious naturalists of the present age—]M. Be Lamarck—to afilrm, that the habits of an animal are not dependent upon its organization; but that, on the contrary, its habits, mode of life, and those of its ancestors have, in the succes- sion of ages, determined the form of its body, the number and con- dition of its organs, and the functions and the faculties it enjoys,— a position, which he has supported with much plausibility, and, at the same time, with much that approximates to the reductio ad absurdum;—for example, when he takes the ease of reptiles, which, as well as other vertebrated animals, in his view, had originally, according to the great plan of organization, four paws attached to the trunk. Serpents must consequently have had four; but having assumed the habit of creeping along the ground, and of concealing themselves in the grass, their bodies, owing to perpetual eflbrts at elongation, to enaWe them to pass into narrow spaces, acquired an unusual length in no wise proportionate to their thickness. Paws would have been quite useless. Long paws would have interfered with their creeping, and very short paws would have been but ill adapted for moving the body. Hence, the want of employment of these parts being constant, they gradually disappeared; although, says M. De Lamarck, they may have originally entered into the jdan of organization of animals of their class. But although this distinguished naturalist carries the influence of function on organization to an extent that cannot be maintained ; it IS certain, that the habitual exercise of an organ does add to its