Handbook of materia medica, pharmacy, and therapeutics, including the physiological action of drugs, the special therapeutics of disease, official and practical pharmacy, and minute directions for prescription writing / by Sam'l O.L. Potter.

Samuel Otway Lewis Potter

Date:: 1894

Credit: Handbook of materia medica, pharmacy, and therapeutics, including the physiological action of drugs, the special therapeutics of disease, official and practical pharmacy, and minute directions for prescription writing / by Sam'l O.L. Potter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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$great Laws of Drug-Action, viz.—That all stimulation reacts into depres- sion,—that most agents which at first stimulate the nerve centres after- wards depress and finally paralyze them,—and that when drugs so affect the functions progressively, they do so in the inverse order of their development, the highest or latest developed function being affected first, the lowest or oldest last. [See the article Alcohol in Part I.] These agents give us the power of lowering perception, inducing sleep and soothing the vital functions by rest, all of which are means of great therapeutical value. The chief narcotics are— Alcohol. Hyoscyamus. Cannabis Indica. Opium, Morphine. Stramonium. Chloroform, Ether, etc. Belladonna, Atropine. Humulus. Chloral-hydrate. Croton-chloral. Hypnotics (^Heupnos^ sleep),—are remedies which produce sleep, and in this wide sense of the term the class would include the Narcotics and the Anaesthetics, as well as those agents which may be termed Pure Hypnoi-' us, which induce sleep by bringing the brain into a favorable condition therefor, rather than by direct soporific action. In this sense the purest hypnotics are the Bromides, but artificial sleep may be produced by many other agents. The principal members of this class are the follow- ing:— Bromides. Monobromated Camphor. Chloral-hydrate. Chloralamid. Croton-chloral. Cannabis, Cannabin. Opium, Morphine, Narceine. Paraldehyde. Hyoscyamus. Hyoscine. Sulphonal. Trional. Tetronal. Urelhan. Hypnone. Methylal. Humulus. I.ettuce. Amylene Hydrate. Piscidia Erythrina. General Anaesthetics. Analgesics or Anodynes (^An, without, pain, Ot^unay, pa.\n), —are remedies which relieve pain either by direct depression of the centres of perception and sensation in the cerebrum, or by impairing the conductivity of the sensory nerve fibres. Opium is the most efficient of all analgesics, because it arrests the afferent impressions at every step of their track—at their formation, along the course of their conduction, and at the point where they impinge on the sensorium. Phe Local Anotiynes hzwe been described, and the list of General Anodynes includes the following-named agents, viz.— Opium, Morphine. Belladonna, Atropine. Cannabis Indica. Stramonium. Hyoscyamus. Gelsemium. Antipyrin. Acetanilid. Phenacetin. Phenocoll. Exalgin. • Aconite. Chloroform, Ether, etc. Conium. Chloral-hydrate. Croton-chloral. Lupulus. Anaesthetics {An, without, Aisthaysis, perception),—are agents which destroy sensation. Local Anceslhetics have been described. General AncBsthetics are certain volatile substances, mostly belonging to the classes$