The American new dispensatory : containing general principles of pharmaceutic chemistry ; pharmaceutic operations ; chemical analysis of the articles of materia medica ; materia medica, including several new and valuable articles, the production of the United States ; preparations and compositions ; with an appendix, containing medical prescriptions ; the nature and medical uses of the gases ; medical electricity ; galvanism ; an abridgment of Dr. Currie's reports on the use of water ; the cultivation of the poppy plant, and the method of preparing opium ; and several useful tables ; the whole compiled from the most approved authors, both European and American / by James Thacher.

  • Thacher, James, 1754-1844.
Date:
1810
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The American new dispensatory : containing general principles of pharmaceutic chemistry ; pharmaceutic operations ; chemical analysis of the articles of materia medica ; materia medica, including several new and valuable articles, the production of the United States ; preparations and compositions ; with an appendix, containing medical prescriptions ; the nature and medical uses of the gases ; medical electricity ; galvanism ; an abridgment of Dr. Currie's reports on the use of water ; the cultivation of the poppy plant, and the method of preparing opium ; and several useful tables ; the whole compiled from the most approved authors, both European and American / by James Thacher. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    ciples, and in the modes in which they are combined. These differences are too subtile to be very accurately determined by analysis, and hence this species of investigation is now acknow- ledged to convey no information on the medicinal powers of ve- getables. Besides carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, which are their principal constituent parts ; some of them contain azot and phos- phorus, which modify their properties. Various metals, too, particularly iron and manganese, lime and the three alkalies, either pure, or in combination with some of the acids, are not unfrequently constituents of vegetable matter, though never in any considerable proportion, nor is it certain but that some of these are formed during the analysis by which they are obtained. The proximate principles of vegetables are sometimes analys- ed by mere exposure to heat; their elements enter into new com- binations, and from the products we discover what the principles were, and even, to a certain extent, in what proportions they had been united. Sometimes the atmospheric air is admitted when they are raised to the temperature of ignition, and by collecting the substances formed by their combustion, Ave form a similar judgment as to their composition. Others of them are capable of undergoing fermentation ; and from the products of this pro- cess, the constituent principles of the substance operated on are determined. Lastly, their analysis may often be effected by the agency of the nitric acid, which communicates to them oxygen, and by the resulting compound ascertains the nature of their acidifiable base. . The proximate principles of vegetables are numerous, and of very different kinds. They are not all to be met with in every plant, or in every period of vegetation, but each of them is to be found in some plants, at certain periods of their growth. They are all the products of vegetation from a common juice or sap, which circulates freely through every part of the vegeta- ble system, which is uniformly supplied by absorption, and which is perpetually changing its composition, according to the state of the plant. This sap being brought into contact, in the vessels of the vegetable, with the gaseous bodies absorbed by its leaves, is by the action of these vessels, assisted by the agency of light, changed in its composition, and thus the peculiar products of the vegetable are formed. The first transition of the sap seems to be into mucilage or gum, as this is one of the proximate principles contained in the greatest quantity in vegetables, and which is abundant in young- plants. It is an inodorous, insipid and glutinous substance, solu- ble in water in every proportion, and forming with it a viscid so- lution termed mucilage. It is insoluble in alkohol, ether, or oil, and is precipitated from its solution in water by the addition of alkohol, or any of the alkalies. It does not absorb oxygen from the atmosphere ; it is neither fusible nor volatile. At a tempe- rature superior to 212°, but inferior to that of ignition, it is de- composed, affording pyromucous or rather impure acetous acid, ammonia, carbonic acid and carbonated hydrogen gases, its resi- duum being charcoal containing lime. The principal products