Substance of a lecture on the applications of chemistry to medicine : introductory to a chemical course in the Newcastle Medical School / by Dr. Glover.

  • Glover, Robert Mortimer, 1816-1859.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Substance of a lecture on the applications of chemistry to medicine : introductory to a chemical course in the Newcastle Medical School / by Dr. Glover. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    Before concluding this lecture, I trust to exhibit sufficient proof of the value of chemical research in the strictly practical departments of Medicine. Chemistry may be said to afford assistance to Medicine directly, by the light it throws on the theory of disease and on treatment, and by the many valuable remedies which it has furnished ; and indirectly, by the illustra- tions it lends to Physiology (the basis of Pathology), and by its numerous applications in Forensic Medicine and in Hygiene. After treating the subject under these heads, (the order of which I shall however slightly alter,) I shall make some remarks on the logical place of such resources as the physical sciences afford in the elevation of the general laws of Medicine. Firsts then, of the applications of Chemistry to Physiology. We may regard the organized being as an entity which eflPects changes on foreign matters, fitting them to become part of its structure, and removes such parts of the structure as are unfit for the purposes of life. We have a force which attracts matter around it, and performs such changes on this matter as are re- quired for the existence and development of the force in a certain form. These changes, both of incrementition and excrementition, are, for the most part, essentially chemical: we must state them in the language of Chemistry, aa we arrive at a knowledge of their nature chiefly by chemical analysis. It is true that we cannot explain how these changes are effected by the vital prin- ciple. We can only say that they are produced by vital affinities, in the same way as we speak of the chemical action exerted by the rays of light, by heat, or by electricity. The nature of the ultimate force cannot intervene in our explanations of physiolo- gical laws, any more than the truth of the law of gravity is dependent on the knowledge of the cause of attraction. The physiology of digestion may be taken as an illustration of the wide scope of chemical reasoning in explaining the functions of the body. The mode in which we explain the presence of chlorine in the gastric juice, and also the action of this fluid.