Researches into the antagonism of medicines : being the report of the Edinburgh Committee of the British Medical Association / by John Hughes Bennett, chairman and reporter.

  • British Medical Association. Edinburgh Committee.
Date:
1875
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Researches into the antagonism of medicines : being the report of the Edinburgh Committee of the British Medical Association / by John Hughes Bennett, chairman and reporter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    REPORT , OF THE EDINBURGH COMMITTEE ON THE ANTAGONISM OF MEDICINES. The series of researches which I am about to describe owes its origin to the Address on Medicine I had the honour to read to the Associa- tion in Chester, at the annual meeting of 1866. I then urged the propriety of endeavouring to solve some of the scientific or practical difficulties with which our profession had to contend. This appeal was responded to, a grant of money was made, and a subscription raised to defray the expenses of a Committee that was to determine the question whether mercury had or had not any power to stimulate the liver to an increased secretion of bile. The report on this subject I had the pleasure of reading to the annual meeting at Oxford in 1868, and I may venture to say that the two years' labour of the Committee finally settled this long disputed subject, and demonstrated beyond the possi- bility of reasonable objection that in this respect mercury had none of the properties that had so long been attributed to it.* At the following annual meeting, in Leeds, another grant of money was made by the Association to investigate the antagonism of medicines, and again I was entrusted to form a Committee, and, as its Convener, to report the re- sults. The Committee that was formed for this purpose consisted of Dr. McKendrick, my assistant. Dr. James Rogers, formerly of .St. Petersburg, Dr. Macadam, lecturer on chemistry, Mr. T. Smith, head of the eminent firm of Messrs. T. and II. Smith, chemists and druggists, Edinburgh (the preparation of whose alkaloids is so thoroughly ap- preciated, and who at once promised to furnish us with the purest * Researches into the Action 0/ Mercury, Podophyllin, and Taraxacum, on the Biliary Secretion, etc Second edition, with appendix, 8vo. Edinburgh : 1874. U