First principles of medicine / [Archibald Billing].

  • Billing, Archibald, 1791-1881.
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First principles of medicine / [Archibald Billing]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    parts, as it does in the gums, on the principle adduced before, that one degree of contraction of the capillaries is necessary to reduce inflammation, while a still further degree will stop nutrition, and bring on wasting and disease; as syphilis has been by some starved out at the expense of the con- stitution. Iodine, arsenic, and sulphate of copper, occasionally produce ptyalism, and are otherwise analogous to mercury in their action. Rheumatic inflammation in the fibrous and other tissues, the capillaries of which are very minute, often cannot be cured by common depletory antiphlogistic means, as above mentioned ; but yield to colchicum, mercury, antimony, bark, &c., introduced into the capillaries through the circulation. The tonic property is frequently combined with astringency-; but that they are not identical is evi- dent from quinine, which contains no tannin, and cinchona bark, which contains very little, being highly tonic ; while tannin, oak-bark, and catechu, are very slightly so. Still, however, we are ata loss to conceive any other than an astringent effect produced primarily by the tonic substances. All the metallic salts have, more or less, an astringent effect on the capillaries; and to this influence I attribute the universal efficacy of antimony as an antiphlogistic remedy, it being doubly valuable in acute cases, from its sedative effects on the heart and pulse, combined with its locally tonic or as- tringent effects on the capillaries of inflamed or congested parts, as well as on those of all the secreting structures. Hence, too, its efficacy, in small repeated doses, in cases where there is great