study of the coarser changes of function which follow on the use of 

 drugs. As early as 1813 he had also proved that the blood is capable 

 of taking up and carrying metallic poisons, but it was not until the 

 middle of the century that the pernicious doctrine of the "action of 

 poisons by sympathy" received its death-blow. About the middle of 

 the century, too, the memorable experiments of Claude Bernard and 

 of KoUiker proving that the paralyzing action of curare centers in the 

 end plates of the motor nerves gave further evidence of the value of 

 physiological analysis as applied to the study of drugs. 



Brilliant discoveries of a similar character have followed from time 

 to time, and we have now innumerable instances of the rational analy- 

 sis and at least partial comprehension of the more obvious functional 

 changes that follow upon the administration of drugs and poisons. 

 One has but to recall atropin, pilocarpin, muscarin, eserin, cocain, 

 digitalis, amyl nitrite, chloral, chloroform, ether, salicylic acid, ergot, 

 and other well-known drugs and poisons, to appreciate how great is 

 the store of knowledge relating to the action of drugs which is at the 

 disposal of the modern student. 



It was experiments like those of Magendie and his successors that 

 induced Mitscherlich (1847) and later Buchheim, to insist on the in- 

 sufficiency of the mere bedside study of the action of drugs and led to 

 the erection of special laboratories in which experimenters can build 

 up their science undisturbed by the intrusive demands of practical 

 utility. Buchheim's pharmacological laboratory founded at the Uni- 

 versity of Dorpat in 1849, was the first public institution of the kind 

 in the world and was long the best equipped in Germany. But it was 

 not alone in Germany that attention was called to the new methods. 

 The medical literature of our own country contains some eloquent 

 pleas in favor of the analyses of medical problems by means of ex- 

 periments. From among these I would call attention to that of Dr. 

 R. Cresson Stiles, contained in a ^vorthy but little-known research, 

 published in 1865, entitled: On the Direct Influence of Medicinal and 

 Morbific Agents upon the Muscular Tissues of the Bloodvessels. This 

 physician was interested in the problem as to how the blood, in febrile 

 conditions, acts upon the circulatory mechanism. He evinced consider- 

 able experimental skill, as shown by his use of the "surviving" um- 

 bilical artery in his transfusion experiments, and he seems to have 

 had some premonitions of our later theories, for he subjected the 

 umbilical artery to the action of blood drawn from a patient with 

 typhoid fever and compared the results thus obtained with those 

 noted when normal blood was used. 



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