An essay on rectal medication / by William Bodenhamer.

  • Bodenhamer William, 1808-1905.
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on rectal medication / by William Bodenhamer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    ing to this theory, before it can be absorbed and enter into the economy, must be soluble, or susceptible of becoming so in the secretions or fluids of that part of the canal to which it is addressed, including, of course, the rectum. Many of those, however, who believe that medicines can only gain access into the economy by being first dissolved, contend that this solution can be just as easily and as certainly effected by the fluid secretions or humors of any other surface or parts of the living body with which they are brought into contact, as by those of the gastric or the gastro-intestinal mucous surface; as, for instance, they who address medi- cines to the mucous membrane of the respiratory apparatus, to the denuded dermis, etc. Mr. Brunton, one of the most energetic experimental physiologists of the present day, says that, Absorption is quickest from a serous membrane, then from intercellular tissue, and lastly, from mucous mem- brane. {Experimental Investigation of the Action of Medi- cines, London, 1875.) 2. Some of the ancients had the same objects in view when they selected the epidermis as an eligible part of the body through which to make therapeutic impressions upon the system. This they did by rubbing into the skin medicinal agents in the form of oils, ointments, liniments, etc. This system of inunction was called latraliptice; that is, the cure of diseases by the application of remedies to the skin, aided by friction. The term latralieptes, from larpo?, a pliysiciany and aXei<poo, to anoint, signifies one who cures diseases by oint- ments and friction. Hippocrates frequently uses the word latralipta to designate the Medicus Unguentarius, or Unction Doctor. Those who practised this system at that day were evi- dently of a very inferior order of physicians ; and, according to Pliny, this order was first instituted by Prodicus of Selym- bria, a disciple of JEsculapius. Galen makes mention of such physicians in his time, and especially of one named Diotas. Cicero remarks that this order attended the baths at Rome, and practised in all diseases of the skin. Celsus, the elegant and philosophic writer, does not bestow upon an iatralipta the dignified title physician, but evidently con- siders him a mere anointer. Sanus homo, qui et bene valet, et suae spontis est, nullis obligare se legibus debet; ac