The action of medicines in the system, or, On the mode in which therapeutic agents introduced into the stomache produce their peculiar effects on the animal economy : being the prize essay to which the Medical Society of London awarded the Fothergillian Gold Medal for MDCCCLII / by Frederick William Headland.

  • Headland, Frederick William.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The action of medicines in the system, or, On the mode in which therapeutic agents introduced into the stomache produce their peculiar effects on the animal economy : being the prize essay to which the Medical Society of London awarded the Fothergillian Gold Medal for MDCCCLII / by Frederick William Headland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    understood less than they do now, it was fancied that the ac- tion and choice of medicines was a thing of the utmost sim- plicity ; that it was comparatively an easy matter to fix at once upon that remedy required most in any particular case.514 But the light of science, which in this day burns more brightly, at the same time that it displays all objects with greater distinct- ness, discloses to us also many dim vast tracts in the distance, of which nothing had been seen or imagined before. In this as in other things, the more we know, the more we discover our real ignorance. It is wrong, then, to treat dogmatically of matters that we cannot comprehend; and when perfectly in the dark as to the operation of a medicine, we should rest content with declaring the result of that operation. This by itself will be of great use to us.f I am induced to lay stress on the difficulties surrounding an inquiry into the modus operandi of medicines, because it will be some excuse for the manifest insufficiency of the sketch which I am about to draw. For this, too, I may find a further apology in the fallacies and mistakes, both of reasoning .and statement, of which previous writers have been guilty. These are best shown by their discrepancies. On no question, per- haps, have scientific men differed more than on the theory of the action of medicines. Either facts essentially opposed and incompatible have been adduced by the disagreeing parties ; or, which is nearly as common, the same fact has received addition to the more obvious facts and symptoms, is so great, that the utmost exertion of human sagacity, founded upon the largest induction of particulars which any one mind is capable of embracing and retaining, can do no more than approximate to that real evidence of which the case seems by its proper nature to be susceptible.”—Glassford’s Principles of Evidence. * Dr. A. Pitcairn, in 1704, concluded one of his works by saying—“ Thus have I succeeded in solving the noble problem, viz., to find a remedy for a given disease. Jamque opus exegif f “ In the meantime it may suffice for the physician to know the effects of a medicine when applied to the body, though he knows not the particular man- , ner whereby it acts.”— Van Swieten's Commentaries on Boerhaave, vol. i. p. 394.