Medicine. 307 



medicinal virtues, and in many instances to make 

 very interesting experiments of their effects on the 

 human body. 



The improvements in Alineralogij, during the 

 period under review, have also furnished many new 

 articles, and extended our knowledge of others in 

 the materia medica. The eminent services ren- 

 dered to medicine in this way, by Scheele, Berg- 

 man, Klaproth, Vauquelin, and a large number 

 of other distins^uished mineralo<rists, are so jrene- 

 rally known, that it is unnecessary to enlarge on 

 the subject. 



While the progress of natural history has con- 

 tributed greatly to the enlargement and correction 

 of the materia medica, the discoveries and im- 

 provements in Chemistry have served still more 

 eminently to promote the same end. When the 

 employment of chemical remedies first became an 

 object of much attention, in the hands of Para- 

 celsus and his followers, it was attended with so 

 much error, and embraced so many visionary and 

 absurd opinions, as rather to corrupt and degrade 

 medical science, than illustrate its principles, or 

 guide their application. And, indeed, till die close 

 of the seventeenth century, the doctrines of the 

 chemist, when applied to medicine, served little 

 other purpose than to amuse and mislead. But 

 modern chemistry, in every respect a more just, 

 rational, and dignified science than what had 

 been called by that name in the preceding age, has 

 opened resources for the materia medica of in- 

 calculable value ; and is daily furnishing the en- 

 lightened physician w^ith some of the most effica- 

 cious means of preserving health and combating 

 disease. 



The chemical inquiries of the eighteenth century 

 have brou2:ht to lij^ht manv new medicines, some 

 of which hold the first rank for convenience, cheap^ 



