The medical companion : treating, according to the most successful practice, I. The diseases common to warm climates and on ship board. II. Common cases in surgery, as fractures, dislocations, &c. III. The complaints peculiar to women and children. With a dispensatory and glossary. To which are added, a brief anatomy of the human body; an essay on hygeine [sic] or the art of preserving health and prolonging life; an American materia medica, instructing country gentlemen in the very important knowledge of the virtues and doses of our medicinal plants; also, a concise and impartial history of the capture of Washington, and the diseases which sprung from that most deplorable disaster.

  • Ewell, James, 1773-1832.
Date:
1816
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The medical companion : treating, according to the most successful practice, I. The diseases common to warm climates and on ship board. II. Common cases in surgery, as fractures, dislocations, &c. III. The complaints peculiar to women and children. With a dispensatory and glossary. To which are added, a brief anatomy of the human body; an essay on hygeine [sic] or the art of preserving health and prolonging life; an American materia medica, instructing country gentlemen in the very important knowledge of the virtues and doses of our medicinal plants; also, a concise and impartial history of the capture of Washington, and the diseases which sprung from that most deplorable disaster. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    greatest activity, principally, of the mineral poisons, as arsenic, corrossive sublimate, calomel, kc. &c. and which can never he neutral in their operations. Whenever ad- ministered they assume a side in the pending contest and exert all their might either for the patient or the disease, till one or the other yields. The preceeding is a faithful picture of Empiricism— of its swaggering pretensions ; of its danger, and its un- certainties; a plain and unvarnished tale, in which nought is extenuated or set down in malice. But with the too prevalent inclination for nostrums, we regret the strange aversion that exists and which pro- ceeds from the same neglect of medicine, to some of the most efficacious remedies. Tartar is denounced as a certain destroyer of the stomach ; mercury because it lodges in the bones ; arsenic as rancorously poisonous, &c. &c. Thus are those powerful and salutary agents, when in the hands of a judicious Physician, stigmatized hy the false views of rude and vulgar prejudice. It has heen wisely and truely declared by high author!ty, u that all medicines in large doses are poison?,, and that poisons in small doses are the best medicines. This is no paradox. The efficacy of a remedy must be pro- portioned to its force, provided, it he administered with discretion, and its operation properly restrain;1;]. On the contrary, the weakest medicine becomes poisonous when given in an undue quantity. In the use of medicines we should be careful to adapt them to the nature of the disease, and the condition of the patient's system at the time. For the salutary pro- perties of a remedy are not possitive, but entirely rela- tive to the peculiar circumstances of the case. A remedy, therefore, may do harm, or prove benefi- cial according to the degree of judgment exercised in its employment. This position might easily be illustrated and enforced by a variety of examples. We shall men- tion, however, only a few that arc most pertinent. What then is more sanative in its effects than the Peruvian bark in the treatment of intermittent fever or gangrene ; or more deleterious if given in an excited system ? Where is there a readier cleanser of a foul