A system of materia medica and pharmacy : including translations of the Edinburgh, London, and Dublin pharmacopoeias / by John Murray.

  • Murray, J. (John), -1820.
Date:
1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A system of materia medica and pharmacy : including translations of the Edinburgh, London, and Dublin pharmacopoeias / by John Murray. 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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    INTRODUCTION. Medical Science, considered as relating to the treatment of disease, may be presented under two points of view. Under one, diseases are de- fined and classed ; their symptoms are described, their causes investigat- ed, the indications are delivered by which their cure is to be attempted, and the remedies are enumerated by which these indications are to be ful- filled. When this method is followed, a previous knowledge is supposed of the natural history, and the properties of the substances employed as remedies ; and they are no farther subjects of attention, than in so far as regards their applications to particular cases, and the cautions which pecu- liarity of circumstances may render necessary in their administration. But the subject may also be presented under another aspect. The symptoms of diseases, their causes, and indications of cure, may be sup- posed to be known, and the remedies themselves become principally the objects of study,—their natural characters, their sensible qualities, their effects on the living system, the theory of their action, and their applica- tions to the treatment of morbid affections, forming so many subjects of description or investigation. This constitutes the department of Mate- ria Medica,—understood in the most extensive signification of the term. The medicinal powers of natural bodies are connected with their che- mical constitution ; they often reside, not in the entire matter composing them, but in principles capable of being extracted in an insulated state, and which in this state can be employed with peculiar advantages. When given in combination too, these substances are liable to act on each other, and from these mutual actions, to suffer alterations in their properties. Hence arises the necessity of strict attention to their chemical composi- tion ; and a description of their constituent principles, and of their chemi- cal relations, so far as these influence their actions as remedies, belongs to this department of Medicine. We are also often able, by chemical combinations, to modify the powers of these substances, to give them more activity, and even by the production of new compounds, to obtain remedies which nature does not afford. These are the leading objects of Phar- macy, which is thus evidently subordinate to Materia Medica. Regardin- all these objects of inquiry as belonging to one department of Medicine, it includes three general divisions. Under the first may be delivered those principles which are common to Materia Medica and Pharmacy, which embrace the chemical relations of bodies, and the changes to which they are liable, so far as* is connected with their medi- cinal operations,—forming what may be named Pharmaceutic Chemistry. Under th<- second is placed the history of the substances employed as re- medies, constituting what is regarded as Materia Medica in the more li- mited sense attached to the term. And under the third may be consider- ed the processes to which these substances are subjected, with the view of preparing them for administration, forming what is more strictly denomi- nated Pharmacy. On these divisions is founded the arrangement of this Work.