In what way is the action of drugs to be discovered? : an essay / by William Sharp, M.D.

  • Sharp, William, 1805-1896.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: In what way is the action of drugs to be discovered? : an essay / by William Sharp, M.D. 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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    chemists, notwithstanding that great names are among them: such as Hermes Trismegistus, Geber (hence gebrish or gibberish), Albert of Cologne, Arnold of Villanova, Raymond Lully of Majorca, and even Isaac and John of Holland. The physicians who discovered chemistry as a science succeeded in laying a foundation upon which a noble edifice has since been erected; but they failed in their application of chemistry to medicine. Their physiology was fermentation; their pathology was an excess of acid or alkali; their therapeutics, neutralisation. It had been found that drugs refused to reveal their hidden virtues by their external features of form and colour and taste and odour ; and it was seen that a further examination of them must be made. They were therefore put into the fire ; a sort of torture which it was expected would compel them to confess. Hence these physicians— the iatro-chemists—were nick-named furnace philoso- phers by the iatro-mechanics of the next age. Basil Valentine of Erfurth, Van Helmont of Brussels, Glauber of Amsterdam, Sylvius of Leyden, and Thomas Willis of London, are eminent names as the founders of chemistry and its application to medicine. They fought a hard battle with the Galenists or orthodox physicians of their time, the rude blows of Paracelsus both helping them and hindering them. We have relinquished their medical hypotheses; we have retained a vast number of their chemical remedies. The efforts of modern chemists claim a larger share of attention, and among these one non-medical name stands pre-eminent, that of Baron Liebig. It is necessary to notice some of his views with care. On the subjects of physiology and pathology briefly; on those connected with therapeutics more fully. One or two sentences applicable to each of the former will be sufficient to show how completely chemical are the physiology and pathology of Liebig. With reference to the first he says :— Viewed as an object of scientific research, animal life exhibits itself in a series of phenomena, the connection and recurrence of which are determined by the changes which the food and the oxygen, absorbed from the atmos- phere, undergo in the organism under the influence of the vital force.