Pharmacologia : being an extended inquiry into the operations of medicinal bodies, upon which are founded the theory and art of prescribing / by J.A. Paris.

Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pharmacologia : being an extended inquiry into the operations of medicinal bodies, upon which are founded the theory and art of prescribing / by J.A. Paris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    must continue to regard as peculiarly my own, for no author, of the least repute, has hitherto invaded it—The Philosophy op Medicinal Combination—from which alone can be deduced the Theory and Art of Prescribing. In the preface to my former editions, I observed that the authors of works professing to guide the novice in his art, had not escaped the too common error of supposing “ that the disciple was already grounded in first principles,” and that “ while they were in the ship of science, they had forgotten he could not arrive without a boat. This ob- servation still remains in full force, and will explain my reasons for occasionally dwelling upon minutiae which might otherwise appear trifling and unnecessary; but while I am thus most anxious “ to catch the ideas which lead from ignorance to knowledge,” it is not without a hope that I may also be able to suggest the means by which our acquired knowledge may be more widely and usefully extended; or, to follow up my figurative illustra- tion, “ to furnish a boat which may not only convey the disciple to the ship, but which may also assist in piloting the ship herself from her shallow and treacherous moorings.” The Title-page announces that the work has been re- written ; this is true to the very letter; its fundamental doc- trines have not been shaken, but so rapid and extraordinary has been the advancement of every branch of science during the last ten years, that its very language had become obso- lete—a new Pharmacopoeia had appeared during this interval, enriched with newly-discovered substances and novel prepara- tions, and with a nomenclature radically changed. The science of chemistry had also, by the aid of quantitative ana- lysis, assumed a new aspect; so that it was impossible, without remodelling the whole work, to render it consistent with the science of the day. Amidst the later discoveries, those of
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