On the classification of medicines according to their action on the healthy body / by Alexander Fleming, M.D.

  • Fleming, Alexander, 1823-1875.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the classification of medicines according to their action on the healthy body / by Alexander Fleming, M.D. 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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    the organ whose secretion it augments, and whose secreting surface it irritates. This remote irritation of a secreting organ or surface is commonly, but erroneously, confounded with ge- neral stimulation; for although both properties may reside in the same drug as in the stimulant diuretics, diaphoretics, and expectorants, the former may co-exist also with general tonic, atonic, or sedative action, as in the other medicines of these orders. The irritation, whether local or remote, induces by reflex action an augmented flow of blood to the organ or mem- brane, and increased secretion, that being a salutary effort of nature to dilute the acrimony of the drug, and protect the living tissue. The flow of tears from snuff in the eye, and of intestinal mucus from an acrid resin in the bowels, are fami- liar examples of this action; and the same law determines the increase of bile from calomel in the duodenum, and diuresis from cantharis and turpentine, as they escape from the kidney. Besides their property as evacuants, the medicines of this class possess general actions as tonics, atonies, stimulants, or sedatives, which influence powerfully their special operation, and guide, in an important manner, their application to dis- ease. Hence their general actions are employed as elements of distinction in the subdivision of the orders. First Order of Evacuants,—Emetics : excite vomiting. They irritate directly the gastric mucous membrane, and induce by reflex action increase of its secretion, and finally, inverted mus- cular action of the stomach, and expulsion of its contents. Some operate within five, others not for fifteen minutes or half-an- hour; and this difference in the time required to produce emesis is associated with important distinctions in the physiological action and therapeutic applications of emetic drugs, which I have therefore divided into the quick and slow. The sulphates of zinc and copper are examples of the quick; tartar emetic and ipecacuan of the slow emetics. Their usual division into the direct and indirect is founded on an unproved theory of their mode of operation. The latter term is applied to tartar emetic
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