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so do they carry it to a higher state of organization, and bring 
it nearer to the nature of man himself. Hence they are less 
and less fitted for effecting those changes in the functions and 
states of organs, which form the objects of medicines ; but 
they are therefore the better suited for affording materials 
of renovation to the exhausted frame; as we may see by the 
large proportion of the Vertebrata employed for food. That 
a greater number of medicines were formerly obtained from 
the animal kingdom, is not therefore to be ascribed to their 
powers having been supplanted by a more abundant and 
perfect supply from the vegetable and mineral kingdoms. 
But then, the general ignorance of both practitioner and 
patient allowed the former, by means of loathsome remedies, 
to operate on the imagination of the latter ; in hopes of 
producing those changes in the state of disease, which his 
knowledge did not tell him how otherwise to effect. The 
reign of ignorance is not yet passed ; but more elegant 
modes have been successively devised, for producing the 
same results; by those who have less excuse than their pre- 
decessors for such practices. 
The exceptions to the above observation, are but few: 
musk and castor still continue to be used ; but these seem 
to be secreted by the respective animals for acting as 
stimulants to some of their own functions: certain sub- 
stances are employed as emollients, and operate chiefly 
by their mechanical properties ; to these may be added 
carbonate of lime, secreted in large quantities by lower 
tribes of animals, as a defence against their numerous 
enemies; but which the improved state of chemistry has 
shown, can be procured of equal purity and with greater 
facility from the mineral kingdom. So few articles being 
now obtained as medicines from the animal kingdom, it is 
of less consequence to ascertain whether there be that 
connexion between structure and its properties, as we have 
