A text-book of materia medica, therapeutics, and pharmacology / by George Frank Butler.

Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A text-book of materia medica, therapeutics, and pharmacology / by George Frank Butler. 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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    the market soft capsules containing this oil that serve an excellent purpose, being easily swallowed and disguising completely the taste and odor of the drug. Administration should occur ordi- narily some time after meals, that the oil may reach the intestines as soon as possible. GROUP III.—MINERAL ACIDS. Mineral Acids are classed here as Restorative Medicines, be- cause three secretions of the body—the perspiration, urine, and gas- tric juice—are normally of acid reaction, the last-named on account of its acidity to hydrochloric acid. Sulphuric and nitric acids are not normal constituents of the body, and are by some authors classed as astringents, although the action and medical uses of these inorganic acids will here be considered. There are, however, certain characteristics common to all mineral acids which claim pri- mary attention: 1. Concentrated mineral acids are caustic to a greater or less degree. 2. They combine with alkalies and alkaline earths to form salts, and unite with vegetable acids, setting them free from their com- bination with bases. 3. When in contact with the tissues of the body they combine with the protoplasm, neutralizing the alkalies which the latter con- tains and forming mineral salts. They also combine with the albu- min, forming acid albumin. 4. Upon the blood they precipitate the albuminous constituents and decompose the hemoglobin. 5. Acids stimulate the secretion of alkaline glands—salivary, duodenal, pancreatic, and hepatic. On the other hand, they depress the secretion from acid glands—gastric, sudoriparous, etc. 6. Mineral acids reduce the formation of urea, preventing the conversion of retrograde products into this substance. 7. They diminish the functional activity of the muscular and nervous systems. Applied locally in a concentrated form, or taken internally in poisonous doses, they tend to produce rigidity of the muscles by coagulating the myosin. . • 8. The alkalinity of the blood is lessened and the^aelivlty of the urine increased by the internal administration of all mineral acids save nitric, the great amount of nitrogen which the latter contains being converted into ammonia, an alkali.