A manual of pharmacodynamics / by Richard Hughes.

  • Hughes, Richard, 1836-1902.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of pharmacodynamics / by Richard Hughes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    24/978 (page 4)
    The sum of what has now been said is this. It will be my duty to discourse from this chair on the Homoeopathic Materia Medica,—embracing, that is, all the substances which homoeo- pathy uses as medicines; setting forth, in addition to other information, the peculiar knowledge which homoeopathy possesses as to their pathogenetic properties ; and, while omit- ting no known actions or uses which belong to them, dwelling especially on those which homoeopathy employs in its treat- ment of disease. These lectures will not attempt to supersede, but only to supplement, the instruction on the subject elsewhere given, and which you have already received or will be receiving. They belong, not to a School of Medicine in general, but to a School of Homoeopathy. Of course, if the time should ever come when the lectures given here should be officially recognised as substitutes for corresponding courses delivered elsewhere, I should not assume any previous knowledge, but should treat my subject ab initio. As it is, it will economize time and strength on your part and mine to confine ourselves within the limits just laid down. I have now to introduce you to that which, in a more limited and technical sense, homoeopathy calls its “ Materia Medica,” viz.; the record of the pathogenetic effects of the medicines it uses. The primary sources of our information on this head, and the compilations of pathogenesy which are avail- able for us, I shall bring before you in the next two lectures. It will also be my duty to refer you, for each medicine, to the original records of its provings, and to any special work in the way of study or arrangement which has been done upon it. The means of following up such references are to a large and increasing extent provided by the libraiy of our School. I must now tell you what, ffi this so- called “Materia Medica” itself, you must expect to find. _ . • 1 c Lct us take as an example the section on Arnica in the first volume of Hahnemann’s Medica Piira. After a short preface, speaking of some of its therapeutic uses, we have a list of symptoms, 638 in number, purporting to be observed patho- genetic effects of the drug. Of these, 280 have no name attached, and are to be understood as contributed by Hahnemann himself. Of the remainder, 311 arc marked with the abbreviated names of the fcllow-obscrvcrs acknow- ledged by him in his preface, seven in all ; and 47 arc credited to certain authors, reference being given to the place where the observation may be found. The .symptoms are arranged in an order mainly anatomical, proceeding from those of the