The physician's prescription book : containing lists of terms, phrases, contractions and abbreviations, used in prescriptions, with explanatory notes : also the grammatical construction of prescriptions, etc., etc. : to which is added a key, containing the prescriptions in an unabbreviated form with a literal translation : for the use of medical and pharmaceutical students.

  • Jonathan Pereira
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The physician's prescription book : containing lists of terms, phrases, contractions and abbreviations, used in prescriptions, with explanatory notes : also the grammatical construction of prescriptions, etc., etc. : to which is added a key, containing the prescriptions in an unabbreviated form with a literal translation : for the use of medical and pharmaceutical students. 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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    drawing away of blood may be accom- plished. Sanguisuga,* Cels. Hiru- A leech or blood-suck- do, Pliny. er. Sanguisugium, Callisen.-}- Sanguisuction or Leeching. (The ex- * Themison, the founder of the Methodic Sect, and who lived a. d. 63, is the earliest writer in whose works we find mention of the leech as a therapeutic agent. The Greeks called it (3de\\a,from (JSzWa), to suck. The Romans termed it sanguisuga (i. e. bloodsucker) or hirudo. Celsus (lib. v. cap. 27) mentions the animal once only, and then calls it sanguisuga. Pliny (Hist. Nat. viii. 10, ed. Valp.) speaking of elephants, says, Cruciatum in potu maximum sentiunt, haustu hirudine, qnam sanguisugam vulgo coepisse appel- lari adverto. They [i.e. elephants] experience great agony from swallowing, in the act of drinking, a leech (hirudo), which I observe has began to be commonly termed a bloodsucker (sanguisuga). JNatural historical reasons lead us to prefer the term sanguisuga as the designation of the medicinal leech; for it appears that all leeches are not provided with an apparatus (or perforating the skin of ver- tebrated animals (see Dr. Pereira's Elements of Materia Medica and Therapeutics, part ii. p. 1820, 2d edit.) The leeches employed in medicine are the following:— 1. Sanguisuga officinalis, Sivigny. The Green Leech. Of this there are three varieties. 2. Sanguisuga medicinalis, Savigny. Hirudo medici- nalis, L. D. True English or Speckled Leech. The Ilmmnjris nigra, Blainville, called in France the horse-leech, was formerly dreaded on account of the sup- posed dangerous wounds which it was said to make; but it appears from the reports of MM. Huzard fils and Pelletier, confirmed by M. Moquin-Tandon, that this animal cannot perforate the skin of vertebrate animals. Leeches belong to the Articulata of Cuvier, class Annelida, order Ahran- chidea of the same naturalist. t Systema Chirurgim Hodiernal, p. 100. Hafn. 1815.