Therapeutics founded upon organopathy and antipraxy / by William Sharp.

  • Sharp, William, 1805-1896.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Therapeutics founded upon organopathy and antipraxy / by William Sharp. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    the constipation is the effect of the astringent principle it is said to contain, has no bearing on the subject in band. The remark belongs to the study of the various effects of the same dose. We are now engaged in study- ing the various effects of different doses; so that the remark is irrelevant. 7. How far this explanation applies to the alleged astringent effect of small doses I am not prepared to say.—It does not apply at all to the action of the smaller doses of Ehubarb. If it were granted that there are two principles, one purgative the other astringent, in Rhubarb, they must be there in the same proportions, whether the dose is large or small, unless different processes have been followed in their prepara- tion, which is not in the supposition. If, therefore, the purgative principle overpowered the astringent principle in one dose, why should it not do the same in any other dose ? Suffer me to say again that all this is speculative not practical thinking, and ought to be discarded alto- gether from this practical subject. The expression alleged astringent effect seems to imply that the writer is unacquainted with experiments with drop doses, or fractions of a drop of the Tincture of Ehubarb. I wish a dozen or two of those I am now addressing would try them on themselves—the experiment would not kill them. 8, Some purgatives act mainly on the smaller bowel, some on the larger.—This is, to me, a grateful acknowledgment, in one example, of the first fundamental