Researches into the action of mercury, podophylline, and taraxacum on the biliary secretion : being the report of the Edinburgh Committee of the British Medical Association / by John Hughes Bennett, chairman and reporter.

  • British Medical Association. Edinburgh Committee.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Researches into the action of mercury, podophylline, and taraxacum on the biliary secretion : being the report of the Edinburgh Committee of the British Medical Association / by John Hughes Bennett, chairman and reporter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    mercurials for hepatic diseases has greatly diminished, their employment is still very general, and in India almost universal. Recent cases demonstrate that long-continued salivation and great loss of health have been produced in the attempt to remove old abscesses or other chronic diseases of this organ, and there are few of its lesions in which it is still not thought advisable to try small or full doses of the drug. On this subject, however, it is unnecessary to dwell at present; the real question is, whether the evidence is satisfactory, or whether further re- searches are necessary. On this and many other topics connected with therapeutics, what we require are not unfounded assumptions and vague spe- culations, but positive knowledge based on unquestionable data; these we have furnished, and consider them amply sufficient to demonstrate the fallacy of the opinions everywhere prevalent as to the cholagogue action of mercury. It would be vain attempting to convey an adequate idea of the great la- bour, wearisome repetition of observations, numerous disappointments, and loathsome manipulations which have tested the zeal, endurance, and courage of Drs. Rutherford and Gamgee, on whom the entire labour of the experi- ments devolved. The difficulties and expense have been greatly increased by the want of a proper locality for carrying on such investigations, and by the necessity of combating the well-meaning but, we humbly think, mistaken notions of those who maintain that physiologists are not justified in experimenting on animals, even with the objects of determining more accurately the use of poisonous drugs and of preserving the life of man. A very different doctrine might have been expected to exist in a great University like that of Edinburgh; but its Senatus, led astray by the reasoning, we regret to say, of an influential member of the Medical Faculty, unquestionably, by its resolutions, greatly added to the toil and annoyance of the Committee’s proceedings. On the other hand our warmest thanks are due to Mr. Kunneley of Leeds, to Dr. Kel- burne King of Hull, and Dr. Andrew Buchanan of Glasgow, for their kind assistance in forwarding animals to us.