Читать книгу Pharmacologia онлайн

82 страница из 211

What can illustrate in a more familiar and striking manner the singular powers of Gastric Chemistry, than the fact of the shortness of time in which the aliment becomes acid in depraved digestion? A series of changes is thus produced in a few hours, which would require in the laboratory as many weeks,^[116] while in acute affections of the alimentary canal the functions of the stomach are nearly suspended, and hence under such circumstances, whatever is introduced into this organ remains unchanged, even the nutritious mucilages are not digested.

From what has been said, it is very evident that the mere chemist can have no pretensions to the art of composing or discriminating remedies; whenever he arraigns the scientific propriety of our Prescriptions, in direct contradiction to the deductions of true medical experience,—whenever he forsakes his laboratory for the bed-side, he forfeits all his claims to our respect, and his title to our confidence. It is amusing to see the ridiculous errors into which the chemist falls, when he turns physician; as soon as Seguin found that Peruvian bark contained a peculiar principle that precipitated Tannin, he immediately concluded that this could not be any other than Gelatine, and upon the faith of this blunder, the French, Italian, and German physicians,^[117] gave their patients nothing but Clarified Glue, in intermittent fevers!—But I desist—not however without expressing a hope, in which I am sure my medical brethren will concur, that, should Mr. Brande again condescend to favour us with a commentary upon Boerhaave, he will select that passage in his work, where, alluding to the application of Chemistry to Physic, he emphatically exclaims, “Egregia illius Ancilla est, non alia pejor Domina.”