New guide to health, or, Botanic family physician : containing a complete system of practice, upon a plan entirely new ; with a description of the vegetables made use of, and directions for preparing and administering them to cure disease ; to which is added, a description of several cases of disease attended by the author, with the mode of treatment and cure / by Samuel Thomson.

Samuel Thomson

Date:: 1829

Credit: New guide to health, or, Botanic family physician : containing a complete system of practice, upon a plan entirely new ; with a description of the vegetables made use of, and directions for preparing and administering them to cure disease ; to which is added, a description of several cases of disease attended by the author, with the mode of treatment and cure / by Samuel Thomson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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principles oflife nd destroy the operation of nature. Expo- r'rl1' neth: t it is the most powerful enemy to health ;l thai il is the mosl difficuli opponent te encounter, with any ever met with. Being inils nature cold, there c nnot be any othei effects produced by it, than to increase the power 01' thai enemy of heat, and tele its 1 O/iitiin, when t ken into the stomach, to such an extent as toh e inj - ot, gives rise to a pleasant serenity of the tpind, m genei il proi eeding to a certain degree of 1 mgour 1 nd ft 1 i-iti s th i: f, 1 ml renders! t] e mouth dry ;i11 ; f,!i in a large dose,gives ion of the he d nd vertigo. The powers of all lululing causes of making impressions on the bodj diminished; and even at times and in situations when a person would naturally be < wi ke, Ble< p is irresistibly induced. In still larger doses, 11 acta in the s me manner as the narcotic pois< us, giving rise to virtigo, headache, tremors, delirium and convul- sions; and these terminating in a state of, stupor, from which the person cannot be roused. This stupor is accompanied with slowness of the pulse^ and with Btertor inbreathing, and the e is terminated in death, attended with the same ancfis as take place in an apoplexy. In intermittents it is said to Inveheen sed with good effect. '-it is often of very great irs of the typhoid type. In small pox. when the convulsions before eruption ire frequent and considerable, oj ia liberally used. In cholera and pyrosis, it is almost the only thing trusted to., ''The administration of opium to the tin iccustpmed, is sometimes very difficult. The requisite quan- tity of opium is w mderfully different in different persons, nd in different states of the same person. A quarter of a grain will, in one adult, produce effects which ten limes the quantity will not do in another. Te lowest fatal Jose 10 the unaccustc rned, as mentioned by autln is, seems to be four grains; but a danger- apt to puke, that it has seldom lime to occasion h. Prom the above extracts it will readily he seen, that the use ■■.' 1111 as medicine is very dangerous, a1 least, if not destruc- tive lo health; its advocates, it will be observed, do not pretend tli.it i; will cure any disorder, hut is used as a palliative for the pnip ngpain, hv destroy in ly. Pain iscaused by d ' w v to relieve it but by Sleep produced by opium is unnatural.

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