Volume 2

The London medical dictionary; including under distinct heads every branch of medicine ... with whatever relates to medicine in natural philosophy, chemistry, and natural history / By Bartholomew Parr.

Bartholomew Parr

Date:: 1809

Credit: The London medical dictionary; including under distinct heads every branch of medicine ... with whatever relates to medicine in natural philosophy, chemistry, and natural history / By Bartholomew Parr. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$fltid an epithet for the sediment in stools and urine, wiiich resembles them. IMAGINA'RII, (from iwagi/to, to conceive). Dis- eases in which the imagination is principally affected. IMAGINA'TIO, (from the same). Im.agination. To the power of the mother’s imagination many pecu- liarities in the foetus have been ascribed. See Fcetus. Philosophical Transactions Abridged, vol. ii. p. 222. Medical Museum, vol. Hi. p. 2/3, &c. IMBECI'LLITAS, {iiom imbeciUis, feeble)acratia and arrhostia; generally means a debilitated state of the habit, and the latter word sometimes implies mental imbecility. iMiiEci'LLiTAs oculo'ruM. See Amblyopia. Nvcvat.op.s. IMBE'RBIS, (from in, not, and barba, a heard). Beardless ; botauically it is applied to the corolla. IMBIBI TIO, (from imbibo, to receive into) ; a kind of cohobation, when the liquor ascends and descends upon a solid substance, until combined with it. Some- times it signifies cohobation, and any kind of impregna- tion. IMBRICA'TUS, (from imhre.x, a tile). The leaves or scales of plants, disposed so as to lie one on the edge of the other, like tiles on a hou.se. The term is applied to leaves, and their serratures in the bud: to the stem, when covered with scales 3 tcctus iit nudus non apparent; to the calyx, as in the hicraciinn, sonchus, and other syn- genesia; to the spike, when the flowers are so close as to press over each other. IMME'RSIO, {iromhnmergo, to plunge in). Che- mical immersion is a species of calcination, when a body is immersed in any fluid, to be corroded. When any substance is plunged into a fluid in order to deprive it of a bad quality, or to communicate a good one, the same term is employed. IMME'RSUS, (from the same). See Infrascapu- LART.S MusCULUS. IMPASTA'TIO, (from in, and pasta, paste). I.M- P.AST.tTiON. The making dry powders into paste by means of some fluid. See Incorpor.vtio. IMPA'TIENS HE'RBA, (from in, and potior, to suffer; because its leaves recede from the hand with a crackling noise). See xMo.mordica and Persicaria SII.IQUOSA. IMPERATO'RTA, (from irnpero, to command; be- cause its leaves extend, and overwhelm the lesser plants which grow near it). Masterwort. Astrantia, magislrantia, ostritiwn, imperaforia major, astritiinn, struthhini, smyrniom; imperatoria pslrulhium Lin. Sp. PI. 3/]. It is an umbelliferous plant, with large winged leaves, divided into three indented .segments, producing thick, oblong, striated seeds, surrounded with a narrow leafy margin : the roots are oblong, thick, knobby, jointed with several lateral fibres, brown on the outside, and whitish within; perennial, a native of the Alps and Pyrenees; found in several places on the banks of the Clyde, in Scotland, by Mr. Lighlfoot. I’he root is warm, grateful, and aromatic, nearly of the nature of angelica; yielding to water, or spirit of wine, its smell, warmth, pungency, and bitterne.ss. On inspissatingthe spirituous tincture, very little of its flavour exhales ; but nearly the whole is carried off in distilla- tion wilJi water. If the root is held in the mouth it provokes saliva3 if swallowed, purges; and is some^ times called the countryman's purge: an infusion of it in water, sweetened with honey, is said to be an expector- ant. I he roots should be taken up in the middle of the winter of the second year. It was considered as an alexipharmic and sudorific; and in some disea.ses em- ployed with so much success as to be called divinum re- medium ; but, at present, it ranks only among the in- ferior aromatics. A name also for angelica. Imperatoria ni'gra. Black masterwort,. astrantia nigra, sunicula feemina; astrantia major Liu. Sp. PI. 339, is kept in the gardens of the curious, and flowers in July. Its black and fibrous root's only are used. See Rail Historia Plantarum 3 Lewis’s Materia Me- dica 3 Neumann’s Chemical Works. IMPERIA'LIS A'QUA. See Fluor albu.s. IMPPITI GINES, (from impeto, to infest). Diseases which occasion blemishes on_the skin 3 terna, dcrbw„ ignis sylvaticus, volagrius, or volaticus, and serpigo. See Lepra, Pruritus, Herpes, and Ment,vgra. In Dr. Cullen’s system the impetigines are an order of the cachexia:, defined disorders from a general bad habit, manifesting themselves principally by disfiguring the skin and other external parts of the body. The itch, though atfecting the skin, is placed in the class- locales, since it is unconnected with the general habit. IMPETI'GO of Celsus, (from the same); lepra Grcc- corum Blanchard. In Celsus it is described as consist- ing of hard dry prurient spots in the face and neck, sometimes over tlie whole body, disappearing in branny scales. Lmpeti'go Pli'nii and a'rabum 3 the lichen of Blanchard. IMPLU'VIUM, a shower bath, (from impluo, fo> shower upon). See E.\ibroc ATlO. IMPOTEN'TIA, (frdm in, not, and patens, able). Impotence in men is the same in its effect as steri- lity in women, that is, an inability to propag-ate their species 3 but in the causes and the circumstances these states greatly dilfer. In each case there is a failure of propagation ; but, in each, there is by no means an unfitness for the venereal act. Sterility in women, indeed, often arises, like im- potence in men, from a coldness of constitution, which admits not of due excitement 3 but it is also owing to the causes which separate the foetus almost as soon as formed. From men who arc impotent no impregnation takes place. The great causes of impotence in men are organic defects and debility. We have shewn, that in genera- tion the semen must be carried to the uterus, and pro- bably to the Fallopian tube; but in this ultimate de- stination it is apjiarently assisted by the action of the womb itself. To carry it to this organ requires a free passage through the urethra, no inconsiderable activity in the ejaculatory muscles, and the full distension of the corpora cavernosa. I'he free passage is sometimes pre- vented by strictures in the urethra, and sometimes, as in a case recorded by Petit, by a faulty direction of the orifices through which the semen passes. A natural jihymosis has been found also an obstruction to the free discharge of the seminal fluid. A severe priapism seems occasionally to constrict the cavity of tlie urethra, or of the entrance of the vasa deferentia3 for in this disea.se- there is no emission, and the feelings arc those of vio-$