Volume 1

A dictionary of practical medicine : comprising general pathology, the nature and treatment of diseases ... with numerous prescriptions ... a classification of diseases ... a copious bibliography with references, and an appendix of approved formulæ ... / by James Copland.

  • Copland, James, 1791-1870.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dictionary of practical medicine : comprising general pathology, the nature and treatment of diseases ... with numerous prescriptions ... a classification of diseases ... a copious bibliography with references, and an appendix of approved formulæ ... / by James Copland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    28/1200
    having been the cause of the fatal issue which often ultimately supervenes. Have certain specialists of the present day any precise knowledge of the effects of several dangerous substances when prescribed in large doses or continued for too long a time? Are they sufficiently informed as to the operation of arsenical and other poisonous preparations, and of the changes they undergo in the body when thus employed ? Can they re- cognise, and recognising, accurately describe the phenomena which re- sult from these preparations when thus exhibited, and when combined with other deleterious, or at least most energetic substances? The Author believes that they cannot, not only because these phenomena are most varied, complicated, and even different, according to the peculiarities of individual cases, to the constitution of the patient, and to the me- dicinal and dietetic combinations in which these preparations have been given, but more especially because they have been persisted in with a manifest ignorance of the operation of these medicines, until the most serious results have been produced. Within six months from writing this the Author has been called, in consultation with other physicians and surgeons, to four cases for which arsenic had been given in large doses and for prolonged periods, and which had been continued until most dan- gerous, and in one case fatal, effects were produced. Has it never entered into the minds of these specialists who thus wield the most dan- gerous weapons of their profession, the poisonous class of medicines, that they accumulate in the system, and are eliminated from it slowly and im- perfectly, that they combine with and remain in the tissues and organs long after they have been taken, that consequently they must have passed through absorbent vessels and glands and into the circulating fluids, and that they may possibly irritate and inflame, or organically change, the vessels and the glands through which they pass; and in a similar manner, or otherwise, seriously affect the heart and nervous masses, as well as the organs, by which they are eliminated from the economy ? XIX. The causes, the early approaches, the advanced forms, and the treatment of Insanity and Suicide are described as circumstantially and fully as the powers of the Author have allowed. A general view of the manifestations of mind by the instrumentality of the brain, is exhibited as a suitable introduction to the study of tins important de- partment of medical science. This view is commenced with a notice^ ol the lowest and the most general states of mind —of the instinctive feelings — observed in the animal creation, and is followed by an ex- position of the highest,—of the intellectual, and reflective powers, and moral sentiments - as evinced by the most civilised of the human species* To this arrangement of the mental emotions and powers, and to the full description of the causes of disorders of these powers, the Author is desirous of directing the attention of the reader. The increasing prevalence of insanity, and of those alterations of struc- ture with which insanity is either remotely allied, or more intonate]y con- ncctedand even complicated-alliances fully described under that head « Far as creation's amplo range extends The scalo of sensual, mental, powers ascends j Mark how it mounts to man's imperial race From the green myriads in the peopled grass. — 1 orK.