MATERIA MEDICA. 



materials ? This is a question which has 

 often been agitated, and almost as often 

 answered in a different manner: whence 

 the arrangement of different writers is as 

 different as possible, as founded upon 

 some supposed superior advantage, or 

 even the mere fancy of the author him- 

 self. The most simple arrangement is 

 that of an alphabetic form, and it has 

 taken place in most of the dispensatories 

 and pharmacopoeias of modern times ; but 

 it conveys no practical information, indi- 

 cates no specific virtue, communicates no 

 scale of comparative power. Another 

 arrangement is that founded upon the 

 quarter or kingdom from which the mate- 

 rial is derived ; and of course under this 

 system the Materia Medica is divided into 

 the three grand classes of animal, vegeta- 

 ble, and mineral substances. Yet this ar- 

 rangement does not appear to be of much 

 more advantage than the preceding ; the 

 plan is even less simple, and the know- 

 ledge it communicates is too trivial to be 

 of any importance. Another, therefore, 

 and a better distribution is founded upon 

 the sensible and more obvious qualities 

 of the substances employed in medicine ; 

 from their being acid, absorbent, gluti- 

 nous, unctuous, astringent, saccharine, 

 acrid, aromatic, bitter, emetic or cathartic. 

 For this classification we are indebted to 

 Cartheuser ; it is highly ingenious, and 

 so far as it is applicable, of considerable 

 utility. But it labours under the defect 

 of being incapable of general application. 

 There are many simples, for example, 

 and those even of great power and ac- 

 tivity, in which we can distinguish no pre- 

 dominant sensible quality; there are 

 many, again, in which various qualities 

 are so equally united, that they have just 

 the same claim to a position under one 

 class or order as under another ; and 

 there are many, also, wliich, though simi- 

 lar in their sensible qualities, are very 

 dissimilar in their effects upon the ani- 

 mal frame : thus, though gentian and aloes 

 agree in possessing a bitter taste, and 

 sugar and manna in being sweet, their 

 medical virtues are widely different. 

 Accordingly, Cartheuser himself is com- 

 pelled to deviate ocasionally from his 

 general plan, and to found a part of his 

 division on the medicinal effects of his 

 materials ; introducing not only a class of 

 .purgatives and emetics, but of vaporose 

 inebriants and narcotics; under which 

 last class he arranges tobacco, elder-flow- 

 er, saffron, opium, and poppy- seeds, sub- 

 stances, certainly, very discordant in all 

 the qualities that relate to medicinal in- 

 tentions. 



The last division we shall notice is that 

 of Vogel, who has classified his materials 

 according to their effects on the human 

 body. Some are found to have the pro- 

 perty of rendering the solid parts of the 

 frame more lax than before, and are hence 

 denominated relaxing- medicines ; others 

 possess a directly contrary power, and arc 

 consequently called indurating medicines. 

 A third kind" are found to excite inflam- 

 mation in the part to which they are ap- 

 plied, and are therefore named inflam- 

 matory ; while a fourth, from being per- 

 ceived to increase or diminish the vigour 

 of the body, or what is called the tone of 

 the solids, have acquired the name of 

 tonics in the first instance, and sedatives 

 in the second. Some, again, are conjec- 

 tured neither remarkably to increase nor 

 diminish the tone of the solids ; but to 

 perform their office either by correcting 

 some morbid matter in the body, or by 

 evacuating it ; in the former case they 

 are called alterants, in the latter evacu- 

 ants. 



These are the general divisions or clas- 

 ses into which simple medicines are par- 

 titioned under this system ; but when we 

 begin to consider their virtues more par- 

 ticularly, a variety of inferior divisions 

 must necessarily ensue. Thus, of the re- 

 laxing medicines, some, when externally 

 applied, are supposed merely to soften 

 the part; and in such case are called 

 emollients ; while others, which are sup- 

 posed to have a power of augmenting the 

 disposition of the secernents of an in- 

 flamed part to the secretion of pus, are 

 called maturants or suppuratives. Se- 

 dative medicines, that have the power of 

 assuaging pain, are denominated parego- 

 rics ; if they altogether remove or de- 

 stroy pain, they are called anodynes ; if 

 they take off spasm, antispasmodics ; if 

 they produce quiet sleep, hypnotics ; 

 if a very deep and unnatural sleep, to- 

 gether with considerable stupefaction of 

 the senses, narcotics. Tonic medicines, 

 in like manner, obtain the name of corro- 

 boratives, analeptics, or nervines, when 

 they slightly increase the contractile 

 power of the solids ; but of astringents, 

 or adstringents, if they do this in a great 

 degree. Some of this order of medicines 

 have been supposed to promote the 

 growth of flesh, to consolidate wounds, 

 and restrain haemorrhages, and hence the 

 names of sarcotics and traumatics, or vuj- 

 neraries ; names, however, which may 

 well be dispensed with, as the quality is 

 very questionable, and perhaps altogether 

 erroneously ascribed. Other astringents, 

 again, are denominated repellent, discu- 



