Researches into the action of mercury, podophylline, and taraxacum on the biliary secretion : being the report of the Edinburgh Committee of the British Medical Association / by John Hughes Bennett.

  • John Hughes Bennett
Date:
1869
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Credit: Researches into the action of mercury, podophylline, and taraxacum on the biliary secretion : being the report of the Edinburgh Committee of the British Medical Association / by John Hughes Bennett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    REPORT OF THK EDINBURGH COMMITTEE ON THE ACTION OF MERCURY, PODOPHYLLINE, AND TARAXACUM ON THE BILIARY SECRETION. At the Meeting of tlie Association in Dundee (1867), I read as a communica- tion some of the results arrived at by a Committee which had been in- vestigating the action of mercury as a cholagogue. The inquiry originated in a suggestion made by myself, in the annual address in medicine I delivered to the British Medical Association at Chester in 1866. The physiological department of Section D considered the results so interesting and important that a grant of money was voted in aid of the Committee's researches, with the understanding that a full report was to be made on the whole inquiry at the next Meeting of the Association to be held in Norwich. The Com- mittee consisted of Dr. Hughes Bennett, Professor of the Institutes of Medicine or Physiology in the University of Edinburgh, the Chairman and Reporter, Dr. Christison, Professor of Materia Medica, Dr. Maclagan, Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, Dr. James Rogers, formerly of St. Petersburg, Dr. W. Rutherford, assistant to the Professor of Physiology, Dr. Gamgee, assistant to the Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, and Dr. Eraser, assistant to the Professor of Materia Medica, Edinburgh. The first meeting of the Committee was held November 16th, 1866. On proceeding to consider by what method the action of mercury on the biliary se- cretion was to be accurately ascertained, the conclusion was arrived at that no kind of examination of the faeces could yield trustworthy results. Supposing that the chief and characteristic constituents of the bile found their way into the alvine evacuations unchanged, imperfection in the analytical methods at our disposal render their quantitative analysis impossible. The plan of ascertaining bile-acids indirectly by means of nitrogen and sulphur determina- tions of the alcoholic extract, while most unsatisfactory in the case of pure bile, is stiU more so when applied to the alcoholic extract of faeces. The method of Professor Hoppe-Seyler of Tubingen, who calculated the amount of bile-acids from the effect which their solutions exert upon the ray of polarized light, presents such complexity and difficulty as to render its