Manual of materia medica and therapeutics : embracing medicines of the British pharmacopoeia / by Alexander Milne.

Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Manual of materia medica and therapeutics : embracing medicines of the British pharmacopoeia / by Alexander Milne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    scribed, its officinal name is simply written ; as for instance, Unguentum Atropise ; Pilula Rhei Composita, &c; but in ex- temporaneous formulae, the medicines are placed in separate lines, the base going first. Incompatibles, though not always therapeutical])7 inert or objectionable when combined, should, in general, be avoided : acid, sulph. dil. should not go along with potas.sii iodid. (as we have seen) •, acid, gallic, with the persalts of iron, nor ammonia with peruvian bark ; and so on. 2. On certain points which demand the consideration of the Prescriber. In prescribing, it should be borne in mind that the action of medicines is influenced by age, sex, temperament, and habit, by diet, condition of system, idiosyncrasy, and climate. 1. Aije.—Children bear nearly as large a dose of calomel as an adult, but they are extremely susceptible of the action of opiates. Old people do not tolerate narcotics and sedatives so well as those of middle life. Sex.—Females, as a rule, require rather smaller doses than males, and they are especially susceptible to the operation of drastic cathartics. The state of the uterine system always requires attention. 3. Temperament.—The phlegmatic tolerates stimulants and cathartics better than the sanguine. 4. Habit.—This is an important head. It is a well-known fact that the habitual use of many drugs, as for instance, opium, arsenic, and even such poAverful cathartics as croton oil and colocynth, &c, begets a tolerance of them in gradually and greatly increased doses : so much so, that some individuals are in the habit of taking daily as much of any one of these as would certainly destroy those unaccustomed to their use. Many persons are known who daily take as much opium as would kill a dozen people, and we know an individual who can now hardly obtain a motion from any of the drastic cathartics. Again, we know some who at one time had their neuralgic pains effectually allayed by ext. belladonna;, who can now obtain no relief whatever from it; and many more examples might be multiplied.