Lexicon medicum, or, Medical dictionary : containing an explanation of the terms in anatomy, botany, chemistry, materia medica, midwifery, mineralogy, pharmacy, physiology, practice of physic, surgery, and the various branches of natural philosophy connected with medicine : selected, arranged, and compiled from the best authors / By Robert Hooper. In two volumes.
- Hooper, Robert, 1773-1835.
- Date:
- 1843
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Lexicon medicum, or, Medical dictionary : containing an explanation of the terms in anatomy, botany, chemistry, materia medica, midwifery, mineralogy, pharmacy, physiology, practice of physic, surgery, and the various branches of natural philosophy connected with medicine : selected, arranged, and compiled from the best authors / By Robert Hooper. In two volumes. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![aBV acteals and lymphatics. See Lacteal and Lym- phatic. ‘2. Those medicines are so termed, which have no acrimony in themselves, and destroy acidities in the stomach and bowels; such are magnesia, prepared chalk, oyster-shells, crabs’ claws, &c. 3. Substances are also so called by chemists, which have the faculty of withdrawing moisture from the atmosphere. Absorbing vessels. See Absorbent. ABSORPTION. [Absorptio; from absorbeo, to suck up.) 1. A function in an animated body, ar- ranged by physiologists under the head of natural ac- tions. It signifies the taking up of substances applied to the mouths of absorbing vessels; thus the nutritious part of the food is absorbed from the intestinal canal by the lacteals; thus mercury is taken into the system by the lymphatics of the skin, &c. The principle by which this function takes place, is a power inherent in the mouths of the absorbents, a vis insita, dependent on the degree of irritability of their internal membrane by which they contract and propel their contents for- wards. 2. By tliis term chemists understand the conversion of a gaseous fluid into a liquid or solid, on being united with some othersubstanee. Itdiffers from condensation in this being the eliect of mechanical pressure. [Absorption by plants.—In 1804, Dr. Foote sent to Dr. Mitchill of New-York, a peach, with the following account of it:—“ I present you with a peach by the bearer. You will readily perceive that I could not be induced to this from any thing very promising in its aspect, the richness of its flavour, or the singularity of its species. On tasting, you will find it highly charged with muriate of soda : and when I inform you that it has undergone no artificial management, but possessed this property when plucked from the tree, you may find some difficulty in explaining the fact. “ This peach was presented to me by Mr. Solomon Brewer, of Westchester Co., New-York, my former residence. Mr. B. is a respectable man, and the pre- sent clerk of the town in which he lives. The history he gives me of this natural salt-peach is, that it grew in ins neighbourhood, on a tree, around the body and roots of whicli had been accidentally poured a quan- tity of pork or beef-brine ; that its fruit ripens in the month of September ; that the effect of the brine had been, to produce a sickness and decay in the tree ; and that at this time (Sept. 1804) it presents the singular fact of a U'ee hanging tolerably full of salt peaches. He was unable to inform me of the precise time of the occurrence, but that it was the lore-part of summer, and after the fruit had obtained its shape and some size. This fact, as respects the vegetable kingdom, is in my mind an isolated one. “ I have felt the more interest in noticing this fact, as it contributes much to strengthen and confirm the opinion you long since advanced, that certain vegeta- bles, as wheat, partake much of the properties of the manure whicli is used as their aliment, and thence urge with much propriety the importance of the sub- ject to agriculturists.”—See Med. Repos, of New- York, vol. viii. p. 209. A.] ABSTEMIOUS. (Abstemius; from abs, from, and temetum, wine.) Refraining absolutely from all use of wine ; but the term is applied to a temperate mode of living, with respect to food generally. Abste'ntio. Cafiius Aurelianus uses this word to express a suppression, or retention: thus, abstentio stercorum, a retention of the excrements, which he mentions as a symptom very frequent in a satyriasis. In a sense somewhat different, he uses the word ab- stenta, applying it to the pleura, where he seems to mean that tile humour of the inflamed pleura is prevented, by the adjacent bones, from extending itself. ABSTERGENT. (Abstergens; from alstergo, to cleanse away.) Any application that cleanses or clears away fou|ness. The term is seldom employed by modern writers. ABSTRACTION. (From abstraho, to draw away.) A term employed by chemiBts in the process of humid distillation, to ainiiily that the fluid body is again drawn off from the solm, which it had dissolved. A'bsos. The Egyptian lotus. Abvacca'tio. (From abvacuo, to empty.1 A mor- bid discharge; a largo evacuation of any fluid, as of ACA blood from a plethoric person. A term used by some old writers. ACA'CLA. (Acacia, ce. f. aKaKia; from aKaiu). to sharpen.) The name of a genus of plants in the Lin- iiiEan system. Class, Polygamia; Order, Monxcia. Tiie Egyptian thorn. Acacia catechu. This plant affords a drug, funn- er ly supposed to be an earthy substance brought from Japan, and therefore called terra Japonica, or Japan earth ; afterwards it appeared to be an extract prepared in India, it was supposed till lately, from the juice of tile Mimosa catechu, by boiling the wood and evapo- rating the decoction by the heat of the sun. But the shrub is now ascertained to be an acacia, and is termed Acacia catechu. It grows in great abundance in the kingdom of Bahar, and catechu comes to us principally from Bengal and Bombay. It has received the follow- ing names: Acachou; Faufel; Cattchu; Caschu; Ca- techu; Cadtchu; Cashow; Caitchu; Castjoe; Gachu; Cate; Kaath. The natives call it Cutt, the English who reside there Cutch. In its purest state, it is a dry pulverable. substance, outwar dly of a reddish colour, internally of a shining dark brown, tinged with a red- dish hue; in the mouth it discovers considerable ad- stringeucy, succeeded by a sweetish mucilaginous taste. It may be advantageously employed for most purposes where an adstringent is indicated; and is particularly useful in alvine fluxes, where astringents are required. Besides this, it is employed also in uterine profluvia, in laxity and debility of the viscera in general; and it is an excellent topical adstringent, when suffered to dis- solve leisur ely in the mouth, for laxities and ulcerations of the gums, apththous ulcers in the mouth, and simi- lar affections. This extract is the basis of several formula in our pharmacopoeias, particularly of a tinc- ture : but one of the best forms under which it can be exhibited, is that of simple infusion in warm water with a proportion of cinnamon, for by this means it is at once treed of its impurities and improved by the addi- tion of the aromatic. Fourcroy says that catechu is prepared from the seeds of a kind of palm, called areca. Sir Humphrey Davy has analyzed catechu, and from his examination it ap- pears, that from Bombay is of uniform texture, red- brown colour, and specific gravity 1.39: that from Ben- gal is more friable and less consistent, of a chocolate colour externally, but internally chocolate streaked with red-brown, and specific gravity 1.28. The catechu from either place differs little in its properties. Its taste is astringent, leaving behind a sensation of sweetness. It is almost wholly soluble in water. Two hundred grains of picked catechu from Bombay afforded 109 grains of tannin, 66 extractive matter, 13 mucilage, 10 residuum, chiefly sand and calcareous earth. The same quantity from Bengal; tannin 97 grains, extractive matter 73 mucilage 16, residual matter, being sand, with a snta quantity of calcareous and aluminous earths, 14. Of tiie latter, the darkest parts appeared to afford most tannin, the lightest most extractive matter. The Hin- doos prefer the lightest coloured, which has probably most sweetness, to chew with the betel-nut. Of all the astringent substances we know, catechu appears to contain the largest proportion of tannin; and Mr. Purkis found, that one pound was equivalent to seven or eight of oak bark for the purpose of tanning leather. [The tinctura Japonica is a powerful and usefttl astringent in looseness of the bowels. Many persons take this preparation when they are not aware of it, and when there is no occasion. It is used to colour fictitious and imitation brandies made in the United States, and front the quantity used, these liquors al- ways produce costiveness. A.] Acacia Germanica. German acacia. 1. The name of the German black-thom or sloe-tree, the Prunus spinosa of Linnceus. 2. The name of the inspissated juice of the fruit, as made in Germany; which, as well as the tree, is there called also Acacia nostras. It is now fallen into disuse. Acacia Inbica. See Tamarindus Indica. Acacia nostras. See Acacia Qermanica. Acacia vera. 1. The systematic name of the tree which affords gum-arabic, formerly supposed to be a Mimosa. Acacia:—spinis stipularibus patentibus, foliis bipinnatis, partialibus tx turns glandula inter- stinctis, spicis globosis pcdunculatis, of Wildeuow](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28738512_0016.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
