Vol. XXIV. No. 4.] 
POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS. 
61 
EQedicirje arjd PtjariQac.v. 
THE RELATION OF CHEMISTRY 
TO MEDICINE. 
While medicine is one of the oldest of 
sciences, as is shown by the trepanned skulls 
found among the relics of the pre-historic 
races of Europe, chemistry is one of the 
youngest ; and although the alchemists, in 
their fanciful search after impossibilities, 
stumbled upon many valuable discoveries, 
and recorded observations which afterwards 
proved to be of great impyortance, yet not 
imtil the time of Lavoisier can there be said 
to have been any real system of chemical 
philosophy, and the science of chemistry, as 
now accepted, is almost entirely a growth of 
the prrsent century. 
Coincidentally with the advance of chemi- 
cal knowledge, the science of materia medica 
began to be founded upon a more rational 
basis, and the disgusting and useless mixtures 
with which the doctors of the preceding cen- 
turies had afflicted their doubly unfortunate 
patients, began to give way to the substances, 
both organic and inorganic, prepared by the 
chemists, of which the composition was 
accurately known, and the therapeutic action 
invariable — except so far as limited by indi- 
vidual peculiarities of constitution.^ Like all 
good things, the new remedies were subject 
to many abuses. The powerful action of 
mercurial compounds, still invaluable in 
many cases, led, at first, to a wholesale use 
of them for all manner of diseases ; and the 
injury which they sometimes caused has 
brought about not only a general popular 
horror of all mercurial compounds, but one 
which has included all the inorganic, or 
"mineral" remedies, — a prejudice which is 
fully understood and taken advantage of by 
the quacks, who advertise their ''purely 
vegetable" cure-alls, regardless of the fact 
that some of the most dangerous and deadly 
poisons known belong to the class of organic 
substances. 
Among the remedies which the physician 
owes to the chemist, are the invaluable 
quinine, morphine, strychnine, cafteiiu, and 
a large number of other alkaloids ; the bro- 
mides, the iodides, chloral hydrate, the 
\arious acids and salts of phosphorous, the 
salts of iron, and, perhaps the most valuable 
of all, the anaesthetics — etl>er, chloroform, 
and nitrous oxide. The modern practice of 
antiseptic surgery would have been impos- 
sible if the chemist had not first produced 
the germ-destroying substances, such as cor- 
rosive sublimate, carbolic acid, permanganate 
of potash, thymol, and others of a list which 
is increasing in length daily. Many — perhaps 
the majority — of these compounds were acci- 
dentally or purposely prepared by investi- 
gators who were interested only in their 
chemical relations, and had no thought what- 
ever of the medicinal value which they after- 
wards proved to possess, and which, in fact, 
it would have been impossible to foresee or 
predict. 
This fact is well illustrated by the substance 
now extensively used in medicine known as 
antifebrin or acetanilid, (Cc H5 N H C> H3 O). 
This bod\' has been known for a long time, 
and some fifteen years ago we prepared a 
small quantitv of it, as an intermediate pro- 
duct in the synthesis of an organic compound 
of theoretical interest only. This was proba- 
bly the first specimen ever prepared in this 
country, although, of course, it was pre- 
viously well known to chemists ; but it was 
not until many years afterwards that its 
remarkable antipyretic action was discovered, 
and it is now to be found in every drug store. 
As to the more lately discovered remedies 
which have been introduced to the medical 
profession by the chemist, — such as somnal, 
urethan, salol, sulphonal, phenacetine, exal- 
gine, antipyrine, and numerous others,- — it 
may be said that, while they all doubtless 
have more or less value, much observation 
and experiment will be necessary to deter- 
mine their exact 'therapeutical action. This 
can in no way be predicted from their chemi- 
cal composition, and the use of any new 
remedy must be more or less empirical, until 
its medicinal qualities are fully understood. 
Take calomel and corrosive sublimate, for 
instance : chemically they are almost identi- 
cal, but while one is extensively used as a 
medicine, the other is one of the most pow- 
erful poisons known ; and there are numerous 
organic compounds, which, although they- 
give identical results when analyzed, yet in 
their physical and medicinal properties are 
as widely different as it is possible for any 
two substances to be. 
The increasing attention paid to the study 
of chemistry in medical schools is, therefore, 
a tendency in the right direction. Although, 
as has been said above, the therapeutic action 
of a substance is not dependent upon its 
chemical composition, yet it is of the utmost 
importance that the physician should be, to 
some extent, a chemist. If there were no 
other reason, it would be necessary to prevent 
the prescribing of incompatible substances in 
the same mixture. The prescription-files of 
most druggists, if they could be examined, 
would show ludicrous instances of the lack 
of chemical knowledge by physicians of high 
starring. But, aside from this, the tendency 
is to discard the old-fashioned bulky drugs, 
and use instead their active principles which 
the chemist separates out and condenses in 
compact form ; he is also constantly mak- 
ing and ottering to the profession new 
combinations of the four elements which 
make up the endless list of organic com- 
pounds. Although there may be an occa- 
sional relapse to mediaeval agents, — as in the 
recent pyrotechnic announcement of Dr. 
Brown-Sequard, — yet it is the chemist who 
is to discover our future remedies, and the 
physician with the most thorough knowledge 
of chemistry who is to apply them intelli- 
gently and use them successfully. 
[Original in Popular Science Neu!$.] 
A TALK BY JOHN WESLEY: LONDON, 
A. D. 1747. 
BY EMELIE TRACY Y. SWETT. 
Primitive Physick ; or an Easy and Natural Method of 
curing Most Diseases. By John Wesley. Homo sum: 
hiimaui nihil a me alienum pntel. Fifteenth Kdition. 
London. Printed by Robert llawes at (No. 7) the corner 
of Windsor St., Bishopsgate — without. 1747. 
Such is the title page of a curious volume that 
lies open before me — a volume that was an oracle in 
the family of my grandfather's father. Medical 
science has marched ahead since then; surgery has 
outstripped the record of its grandfather and even 
of its father. And yet, when we are honest with 
ourselves in occasional moments, how helpless we 
still find ourselves in the event of sickness and 
death, and how many times even the best medical 
men can only grope after the truth. I am going to 
let this article do its own talking. The resurrected 
spirit of this healer of the eighteenth century will 
give you a few readings from his own published 
works. 
ENTER .MR. JOHN WESLEY. 
He struts about the platform, eyes the spectacled 
medicos that fill the auditorium, polishes off his 
ungainly glasses with a lurid bandanna handker- 
chief at least a yard square, takes a pinch of snuff 
and a sip of sweetened water, and begins to speak 
as follows : 
Dearly Beloved Brethren : When man came first 
out of the hands of the great Creator, clothed in 
body as well as in soul with immortality and incor- 
ruption, there was no place for physick, or the art 
of healing. As he knew no sin, .so he knew no 
pain or sickness or bodily disorder. The habitation 
wherein the angelick mind — the clivinrB parlicula 
aurce — abode, although originally formed out of the 
dust of the earth, was liable to no decay. It had no 
seeds of corruption or dissolution within itself. 
And there was nothing without to injure it : 
heaven and earth and all the hosts of them were 
mild, benign, and friendly to human nature. The 
entire creation was at peace with man, so long as 
man was at peace with his Creator. So that well 
might the morning stars sing together, and all the 
sons of God shout for joy. 
But since man rebelled against the Sovereign of 
heaven and earth, how entirely the scene changed. 
The incorruptible frame has put on corruption; the 
immortal has put on mortality. The seeds of weak- 
ness and pain, sickness and death, are now lodged 
in our inmost substance, whence a thousand dis- 
orders continually spring, even without the aid of 
external violence. And how is the number of these 
increased,by everything around us.' The heavens, 
the earth, and all thing,s contained therein, conspire 
to punish the rebels against their Creator. The 
sun and moon shed unwholesome influences from 
above; the earth exhales poisonous damps from 
beneath; the beasts of the field, the birds of the 
air, the fishes of the sea, are in a state of hostility; 
the air itself, that surrounds .us on every side, is 
replete with the shafts of death ; yea, the food we 
eat, daily saps the foundation of the life which can- 
not be sustained without it. So has the Lord of all 
secured the execution of his decree: "Dust thou 
art, and unto dust thou shalt return." 
