464 
LECTURES ON THE BRITISH PHARMACOPCEIA. 
horticultural sciences. Following up the experiments of M. Eusebe Gris, Professor of 
Chemistry at Chatillon-sur-Seine, the discoverer, he had applied to a Wellingtonia, which 
was very sickly from being transplanted too late in the spring of last year, a solution of 
the protosulphate of iron, in the proportion of one ounce to a gallon of water, with very 
marked effect [for syringing only one-fourth of this strength ought to be used]. In 
about three months the plant appeared completely resuscitated, and is now quite healthy 
and strong. A similar result was obtained upon some rose-trees which were looking 
very dilapidated from the same cause; these also recovered, as it were almost by magic, 
their leaves assuming a green colour, and their flowers a more brilliant hue than all the 
rest in the garden. He had induced several of his friends to try the salts of iron upon 
weak and unhealthy plants, with corresponding results. He hoped those members who 
were fond of gardening would try similar experiments, and report them to the Society. 
Mr. Atherton proposed, and Mr. Dann seconded, a vote of thanks to Mr. Fyfe for his 
paper, which was carried unanimously. 
The Secretary introduced to the meeting some of Thonger’s Patent Safety Labels 
for poison bottles. 
LECTURES ON THE BRITISH PHARMACOPCEIA. 
ON THE GALENICAL PROCESSES AND PREPARATIONS. 
Lecture II. 
Delivered before the Members of the Pharmaceutical Society , March 16, 1864. 
BY THEOPHILUS REDWOOD, PH.D., F.C.S., 
PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY AND PHARMACY TO THE PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY, 
AND SECRETARY TO THE CHEMICAL SOCIETY. 
Although the use of medicines may be traced to the earliest times at which 
we have records of the history of man, subject as he has been to disease, and 
ever seeking to extend the duration of life, yet on looking to remote periods, 
it appears that the remedies employed were all derived from the organic 
kingdoms of nature, and especially from the vegetable kingdom. It was not 
until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of the Christian era that mineral 
medicines, or at least those of a definite chemical character, were introduced. 
About the middle of the fifteenth century, Basil Valentine, in his c Chariot of 
Antimony,’ ushered in a new system of medicine, and from that time dates 
the employment of chemical medicines. Valentine may be said not only to 
have introduced chemical remedies into medicine, but to have laid the first 
solid foundation for the science of chemistry. In his works we find the 
earliest intelligible description of practicable processes for the production of 
sulphuric, nitric, and muriatic acids, together with many metallic preparations, 
especially those of antimony; and these were vaunted as the only true reme¬ 
dies for disease. 
Basil Valentine, who was a great chemist for the time at which he lived, 
was succeeded by a man whose name fitly represents his character. Theo¬ 
phrastus Bombastes Paracelsus was the enthusiastic, bigoted, and dogmatical 
advocate of chemical remedies, and the uncompromising and often infuriated 
denouncer of the system of medical treatment which then and previously pre¬ 
vailed, and which being mainly supported by the writings and authority of 
Galen, the great and learned physician of the second century, was distin¬ 
guished as the Galenical system. 
It was now that a fierce contest commenced between the advocates of che¬ 
mical or spagirical remedies on the one side, and of Galenical remedies on 
the other. The votaries of Galen decried the use of chemical preparations in 
medicine, ascribing to them poisonous properties, and predicting serious in- 
