Transactions ... for the year 1829. With the annual address / by T. Romeyn Beck.

  • Medical Society of the State of New York (Albany, N.Y.)
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Transactions ... for the year 1829. With the annual address / by T. Romeyn Beck. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    grow in our streets or lanes—or abound in our marshes. There is a substance which in small quan¬ tities convulses the palsied arm of the bed-ridden— the limb that has hung dead for years by his side. It is strychnine, a vegetable product. But to crown all this—what is the most concentrated and deadly poison with which we are acquainted—which will destroy alt species of life, from the snail up to man, with the rapidity of lightning—which has struck down the suicide in death, before he could finish the fatal draught ? It is prussic acid—a vegetable pro- duct, that can be distilled from the leaves and kernels of the peach, or from the laurels that abound through¬ out our state. And yet, after this enumeration, we have only gone through a portion of the noxious vegetable substan¬ ces. Let not this statement startle any of my hear¬ ers. It may be laid down as an axiom, generally true, that with the exception of some remedies in the classes of astringents and tonics, a vegetable is vaL liable as a medicine, in proportion as it is noxious in large quantities. In every botanical work, you find! the remark, that those which are not possessed of some acrid qualities, are inefficient in their operation on the human system. The question then presents itself to the mind of every enlightened man, whether those who have re¬ ceived an appropriate education ; who have the stored of accumulated knowledge opened to them, are the safest persons to be entrusted with the care of the health of the community, or whether they shall be put on a par with such as claim instinct—or self- inspiration as their guides. Can these soldiers of Cadmus be expected to bring any useful spoil into the camp ? Look at every modem work on the ma-
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