Address of Earl Stanhope, President of the Medico-Botanical Society, for the anniversary meeting, January 16, 1831.

  • Stanhope, Philip Henry Stanhope, Earl, 1781-1855.
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address of Earl Stanhope, President of the Medico-Botanical Society, for the anniversary meeting, January 16, 1831. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    I am informed, that the most grievous malady with which human nature is afflicted—mental derangement—-has been effectually cured in a short period of time by Fo¬ mentations and Cataplasms of the Glechoma hederacea* applied to the sutures of the head. Ray mentions the case of a violent and inveterate head-ache, which was entirely removed by drawing into the nostrils the juice of this Plant, upon which he bestows so high an encomium, that he says, “ Medicamentum hoc non satis potest lau- “ dari, si res ex usu estimarentur auro eequiparandum” This Plant, which is received into the Austrian Phar¬ macopoeia, but not into that of the Royal College of Phy¬ sicians, was considered by Dr. Pitcairn to be of extreme efficacy in consumptive cases; and a Syrup of its Juice was recommended by Boerhaave, in the Hooping Cough, in Spitting of Blood, and in Haematuria. It appears, there¬ fore, that its qualities should be fully examined, and should be subjected to a chemical analysis, and after¬ wards to actual trial. With respect to those plants which, from botanical analogy, are considered to be medicinal, but which, from an imperfect knowledge of their properties, are not em¬ ployed by the medical practitioner, nor even as popular remedies, their constituent principles can only be ascer¬ tained by Chemistry, which ought to commence the inves¬ tigation, and to precede the trials that might subse¬ quently be made. It would thus be found, whether and in what degree the principles which they contain are similar to those of other Plants, the qualities of which are already known, and consequently whether they might be supposed to produce the like effects; whether they seem to possess more or less activity than those which they resemble; whether they can be extracted with greater