20 
PATHOLOGY. 
hulks, feed of bilhop’s-weed, of harttvort, of treacle- 
muitardor mithridate-muftard, juice of the rape of ciftus, 
acacia, or in its ftead Japan earth, gum Arabic, iforax 
drained, fagapenum ftrained, Lemnian earth, or in its 
Head bole-armenic or French bole, green vitriol calcined, 
of each half an ounce ; root of creeping birtluvort, or in 
its Head of the long birthwort, tops of the lefler centaury, 
feeds of the carrot of Crete, opoponax, galbanum ftrained, 
Rullia'caftor, Jews pitch, or in its Head white amber pre¬ 
pared, root of the fweet flag, of each two drams ; of cla¬ 
rified honey thrice the weight of all the reft. The ingre¬ 
dients are to be mixed in the fame manner as in the 
Mithridate.” The Theriaca may be confidered as a 
modification of the Mithridate by Andromachus, though 
we are not informed what were his reafons for the varia¬ 
tions, except that by the addition of the viper’s fielh the 
medicine was rendered more ufeful againft the bite of 
that animal. The Theriaca was in fo great repute before 
the decline of the Roman empire, that even the wife 
Marcus Aurelius was induced to make a daily ufe of it, 
to' the great prejudice of his health ; for we are told by 
Galen, that his head was fo much affedted, that he dofed 
in the midft of bufinefs; and, when on this account he 
omitted the opium in the coinpofition, he could not lleep 
at all. 
When the alchemifts had extended the bounds of their 
art from the mere drudgery of manufacturing gold and 
filver to the more noble and phiiofophic employment of 
compoling an univerfal elixir that fhotild fecureits pof- 
fefior from difeafe, and prolong his life to an indefinite 
period, pharmacy derived from their labours confiderable 
and folid advantages. The experiments inftituted by 
thefe vifionaries with the metals, led to the accidental 
difcovery of fome of the molt efficacious remedies which 
we at prefent employ, efpecially the preparations of anti¬ 
mony and mercury, and molt of what are called the neu¬ 
tral or fecondary 1 'alts. By calling in the aid of fire, they 
’ enabled us to produce in bodies changes which, with¬ 
out the affiftance of this powerful agent, we fhould have 
been unable to efl'eCt. Now, every thing was fubmitted 
to digrjhon, calcination, fermentation, diftillation, and fitb- 
limution-, but, as generally happens in cafes of innovation 
or reform, thefe new methods of obtaining active reme¬ 
dies were carried to an abfurd and ridiculous extent. 
Finding that the healing powers of many fubftances were 
eliminated or increafed by the application of heat, they 
feemed to imagine that the fimple medicine could in no 
cafe poffefs any medical virtue till it had been 
placed upon the fire or kept for fome hours in a 
furnace. Hence the immenfe number of diftilled waters 
and fpirits, elfential and empyreumatic oils, with which 
the old pharmacopoeias are crowded, and which feem in 
many cales to poliefs no other powers than what they de¬ 
rive from the water or the fpirit that forms the bulk of 
the preparation. Not only plants and minerals, but ani¬ 
mals and animal matters of all kinds, were diftilled, di- 
gefted, or calcined. Thus, we find a water of Jhails, a 
fpirit of millepedes , an oil of earth-worms. See, See. The 
abfurd and pompous names by which the preparations 
were diftinguifned, are truly ridiculous. Magijierial 
balfqm, Hicra picra, Ethiops mineral, Ens Veneris, Flores 
Martis, Calmnclas, Aqui'tu alba, are a few which long re¬ 
tained their feat both in public and private difpenfatories. 
As’ thefe preparations were, from their contrivers, deno¬ 
minated chemical, the more ancient medicines which 
■were drawn almcft entirely from the animal and vege¬ 
table kingdoms, were denominated Galenical, becaufe 
chiefly employed by the followers of Galen. Hence the 
divifion of medicines into Galenical and Chemical, a divi- 
fion which obtained for fome hundred years, and which 
only a few years ago was prelerved in the fale-caialogues 
of the London druggifts. 
The chief follower of Paracelfus was Van Helmont. He 
made many important chemical difcoveries; ftrongly op- 
poled the Galenical dodlrir.e; and, though often milled in 
his fpeculations by a ftrong bias to theofophifm, he ob- 
ierved Nature very attentively; he pointed out more 
fully than Paracelfus had done, the influence of the epi- 
gaftric organs on all the other parts of the lyftem; and he 
gave fome account of the origin of urinary calculi. The 
nature of inflammation was likewife explained by him, 
and the pernicious confequences of exceffive bleeding 
welfpointed out. Van Helmont had not, however, many 
adherents at the time he lived. His theory was afterwards 
taken up by Defcartes, who attempted to explain all the 
phenomena of life according to chemical and mechanical 
principles. Thus, the circulation of the blood and animal 
heat were produced, according to him, by the ebullition 
or fermentation that took place in. the heart; digeltion 
was likewife performed by a fpecies of fermentation ; and 
the fenfation of hunger proceeded from the acid which 
was evolved during the procefs. To explain the nature' 
of fecretion, Defcartes had recourfe to> the corpufcular 
philofophy; comparing the fecreting organs to lieves, 
which allowed only the more minute and homogeneous 
particles to pafs through, while the coarfer and hetero¬ 
geneous bodies were rejected: the round particles were 
luppofed by him to enter into cylindrical tubes; pyrami¬ 
dal particles penetrated by triangular pores, and cubical 
particles by fqtiare pores; and in this way each fecretion 
remained diftindt, at leaft in the healthy ftate. Thefe 
ideas were eagerly embraced by the Dutch phylicians of 
the time, and may be confidered as forming the ground¬ 
work of the chemical and mechanical fyftems, which di¬ 
vided the medical world at the end of the fevenreeuth cen¬ 
tury, notwithftanding the claims to originality which le- 
veral of their followers have put in. 
After the revival of genuine philofophy in the fixteenth 
century, it might naturally be expected that medical fci- 
ence would immediately avail itfelf of its light, and par¬ 
take of its benefit; but this was fo far from being the 
cafe, that, in the firft inftance, it proved a new fource of 
error, and threw fre fin impediments in the road which was 
fuppofed to be opened to the improvement of rational 
medicine. The difcovery of the circulation of the blood 
may, indeed, be confidered as one of the firft fruits of the 
inquiries into nature begun in that age. But, though 
this is a fundamental element in the economy of the 
living body, it throws little or no light on the principles' 
peculiar to life, being purely of a mechanical nature ; and, 
abftradtedly confidered, hardly admits of any application 
to the pradiice of medicine. On the contrary, this difco¬ 
very, by its perverted application, tended to corrupt and 
millead, by a loofe adoption of the principles of mechani¬ 
cal philofophy, fo well laid down in that age by Galileo 
and others. Boreili, in inveftigating the force of the 
heart by experiment, eftimated it at 180,000 pounds; 
Hales, at 51 pounds; Keil, at 1 pound. The mechanical 
powers of the ftomach were, about the fame time, fub- 
jedled to experimental refearch by Pitcairn, who gravely 
gave out that he found this vifeus, in the human lubjedt, 
exerted a force equal to 12,900 pounds, in compreifing 
food in the procefs of digeftion. Others, conceiving that 
chemical power had the chief lhare in this fundlion, en¬ 
deavoured to evince that the change in the foot! was 
brought about by means of heat and fermentation. 
Sounder principles have referred thefe changes to powers 
which have nothing in common with the mechanical and 
chemical powers which characterize inanimate nature. 
From the picture that has been exhibited of the innu¬ 
merable doubts and difficulties which clog the attainment 
of medical knowledge, and embarrafs the application of 
it to pradrical purpofes, the timid, fceptical, and indolent, 
may be difeouraged from ftudies apparently fo arduous in 
their prol'ecution, and fo queftionable as to the efficiency 
and utility of their refult. But it i§ not from charadlers 
of this defeription that much good can be expedled in any 
of the ufeful arts of life, If a like defpondency were to 
pervade mankind in general, there would be an end to all 
that enterprife and energy which alone can enable them 
to 
