Carbonic acid in medicine / by Achilles Rose, M.D. ; with the portraits of van Helmont, Priestley and Lavoisier.

  • Achilles Rose
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Carbonic acid in medicine / by Achilles Rose, M.D. ; with the portraits of van Helmont, Priestley and Lavoisier. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    CHAPTER II tllSTORY OF THE USE OF THE CAR- BONIC ACID IN THERAPEUTICS The application of carbonic-acid gas for ther- apeutical purposes can be traced to the earliest times. We all have read of the stone of Mem- phis, which stone was pulverized, dissolved in vinegar, and applied to parts of the body in order to anesthetize them. Dioscorides and Plinius speak of this stone. But exact obser- vations of the gas were not made before the seventeenth century. Mineral springs, with their large volume of carbonic-acid gas dissolved in water, have served for therapeutical purposes long before carbonic acid had been demonstrated. They often present remarkable appearances when relieved from subterranean pressure, by losing their gases with more or less rapidity, accord- ing to the tension to which they had been sub- [21]