Therapeutics, materia medica and pharmacy : the special therapeutics of diseases and symptoms, the physiological and therapeutical actions of drugs, the modern materia medica, official and practical pharmacy, prescription writing, and antidotal and antagonistic treatment of poisoning / by Sam'l O.L. Potter.

  • Samuel Otway Lewis Potter
Date:
[1931], ©1931
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Therapeutics, materia medica and pharmacy : the special therapeutics of diseases and symptoms, the physiological and therapeutical actions of drugs, the modern materia medica, official and practical pharmacy, prescription writing, and antidotal and antagonistic treatment of poisoning / by Sam'l O.L. Potter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Restoratives are agents which promote constructive metamorphosis, in¬ cluding the Foods, Hematics and Tonics, as well as many agents called Stimu¬ lants in other classifications. Foods, are substances which, when introduced into the body, supply ma¬ terial to renew some structure or to maintain some vital process; being distin¬ guished from medicines in that the latter modify some vital action but supply no material to sustain it. The food of man is derived from all three of the kingdoms of nature, the animal, vegetable and mineral, and includes many substances treated of in the Materia Medica, as Oils and Fats Sugar, Starch, Gum Alcohol, Beverages like Coffee and Tea, Water, Calcium Phosphate Sodium Chloride. Hematinics (al/xa? the blood), are medicines which augment the quantity of hematin in the blood, and thus restore the quality of that tissue by enrich¬ ing its red corpuscles. They consist chiefly of Iron and Manganese and their compounds. Tonics (royos, tension), are agents which improve the tone of the tissues on which they have specific action, restoring energy and strength to debilitated subjects by a scarcely perceptible stimulation of all the vital functions, their effects being apparent in an increased vigor of the entire system. The chief tonics are enumerated in the foregoing lists under the heads of the organs or tissues particularly affected by them. [Compare Stimulants, Respiratory Stimulants, Cardiac Tonics, Vascular Tonics, Gastric Tonics, etc.] Rubefacients, see Irritants. Salts are compound bodies formed:—(i) by the interaction of an acid and a base, which may be an element, an oxide, or a compound containing a weaker acid radical than the acid employed; the base displacing some of the hydrogen from the acid, as HN03 and K, forming KNOa Potassium Nitrate: (2) by the interaction of two elements, as Na with Cl, forming NaCl, Sodium Chloride or common salt: (3) by the union of two or more oxides of elements having oppo¬ site electrical states, as S03 and BaO, forming BaS04, Barium Sulphate. Most salts contain three elements, one being Oxygen, and its comparative amount is shown by the terminal of the name of the salt; those ending in -ate being formed by an -ic acid and having the greater quantity of oxygen, those ending in -ite being formed by an -ous acid and having the lesser amount of oxygen. The prefixes hyper- (or per-) and hypo- indicate respectively a greater or lesser amount of oxygen than can be represented by the terminations -ate and -ite. Salts formed by the union of two elements and containing no oxygen have the termination -ide, which indicates that they contain nothing but the elements designated in their names. Salts may be divided into six classes, viz.— Normal Salts,—in which the Hydrogen of the acid is fully displaced by a single element, as KN03 Potassium Nitrate. Acid Salts,—in which some displaceable Hydrogen still remains, as KHC03 Acid Potassium Carbonate.