Address of Earl Stanhope, President of the Medico-Botanical Society, at the anniversary meeting, January 16, 1829.

  • Philip Henry Stanhope, 4th Earl Stanhope
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address of Earl Stanhope, President of the Medico-Botanical Society, at the anniversary meeting, January 16, 1829. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/32 page 15
    preparation. A most curious Paper was read lately at a Meeting of this Society on the Guaco, which experience has shewn to cure those who had been bitten by the Rattle¬ snake, and which has even been employed with success as a preservative against the attacks of that reptile; and I was informed by a gentleman, who is an ornament of this Society, as well as of the Profession to which he belongs, I mean Lieut. M. C. Friend, that the expressed juice of that Plant, which had been perfectly efficacious in securing the animals that had been inoculated with it against the attacks of a Rattle-snake, had, in two days afterwards, lost by fermentation much of its power, and the trials which were then made of it were not attended with the same results. Medical Investigation and Experiments are of primary importance to the objects of this Society, and ought to be zealously and constantly, but carefully and cautiously, pursued ; and I cannot too strongly recommend to you, the actual trial of the medicinal properties of Vegetables, as I am fully convinced that nothing can be more requisite, that nothing can indeed be so desirable, and that nothing can so , much contribute to promote our views, and to extend and to improve the Materia Medica. For this purpose, it is not intended to proceed rashly or ignorantly, or upon grounds which are insufficient to warrant the trials. In some cases, they would be made in consequence of the Botanical Analogy between the Vegetable, which is the subject of examination, and others of which the medicinal qualities are known. In other cases, the trials would be recom¬ mended by Chemical Analysis, if it shewed that the Ve¬ getable possessed the principle, which is believed to con¬ stitute the medicinal virtue of some others, and if it is found in that Vegetable unmixed with such qualities as might counteract its effects, or might, in other respects, be
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