The specific action of drugs on the healthy system : an index to their therapeutic value, as deduced from experiments on man and animals / by Alexander G. Burness and F. J. Mavor.

  • Burness, Alexander George.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The specific action of drugs on the healthy system : an index to their therapeutic value, as deduced from experiments on man and animals / by Alexander G. Burness and F. J. Mavor. 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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    and from thus influencing the function of one part, influence to a o-reater or less extent the function of other parts in- directly. While a toxic dose ivill effect such changes in a ])art as to %unjit it for any vital action, a lesser close, applied to a diseased part, luill, by removing that state of combination of the elements xuhich excited diseased action, enable the nor- mal i^rocess of nutrition to restore the healthy constitution. It will now be evident from these examples, that each of the above-mentioned substances will exert a specific in- fluence over those parts or tracts which contain those con- stituents for which they have an affinity. Thus having indicated the specific action of those sub- stances which produce physical and chemical effects, it now remains to show that those which possess dynamical proper- ties also exert a specific influence (peculiar to each) on some special parts or tracts, by causing some alteration in the nature or quality of the vital action, and in many cases some change in the composition of the organic tissues. Some substances possess both chemical and dynamical properties. In cases of poisoning, we have a substance introduced into the healthy animal economy in a toxic dose, and as in such cases we have aU the physiological eff'ects of the par- ticular substance produced, we can, by noting the symptoms, arrive at a knowledge of what special parts or tracts are influenced. For example:—Arsenious acid, as a rule produces the following symptoms when swallowed: — Faintness, depression, nausea, and vomiting, intense burning pain in the region of the stomach, which soon extends over the whole abdomen, the pain being increased by pressure. DiaiThcea soon sets in, accompanied with