Zoonomia Volume Ii Part 66

Worms, i. 1. 4. 10.

---- mucus counterfeits, i. 1. 3. 4.

---- in sheep, i. 2. 3. 9.

Wounds, healing of, i. 1. 3. 13.

Y.

Yawning, ii. 1. 1. 9.

Yaws, ii. 1. 5. 5.

Z.

Zona ignea, ii. 1. 5. 9. iv. 1. 2. 11. ii. 1. 2. 14.

ZOONOMIA;

OR,

THE LAWS OF ORGANIC LIFE.

PART III.

CONTAINING

THE ARTICLES OF THE MATERIA MEDICA,

WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE

OPERATION OF MEDICINES.

IN VIVUM CORPUS AGUNT MEDICAMENTA.

PREFACE.

THE MATERIA MEDICA includes all those substances, which may contribute to the restoration of health. These may be conveniently distributed under seven articles according to the diversity of their operations.

1. NUTRIENTIA, or those things which preserve in their natural state the due exertions of all the irritative motions.

2. INCITANTIA, or those things which increase the exertions of all the irritative motions.

3. SECERNENTIA, or those things which increase the irritative motions, which const.i.tute secretion.

4. SORBENTIA, or those things which increase the irritative motions, which const.i.tute absorption.

5. INVERTENTIA, or those things which invert the natural order of the successive irritative motions.

6. REVERTENTIA, or those things which restore the natural order of the inverted irritative motions.

7. TORPENTIA, those things which diminish the exertions of all the irritative motions.

It is necessary to apprize the reader, that in the following account of the virtues of Medicines their usual doses are always supposed to be exhibited; and the patient to be exposed to the degree of exterior heat, which he has been accustomed to, (where the contrary is not mentioned), as any variation of either of these circ.u.mstances varies their effects.

ARTICLES

OF THE

MATERIA MEDICA.

ART. I.

NUTRIENTIA.

I. 1. Those things, which preserve in their natural state the due exertions of all the irritative motions, are termed nutrientia; they produce the growth, and restore the waste, of the system. These consist of a variety of mild vegetable and animal substances, water, and air.

2. Where stronger stimuli have been long used, they become necessary for this purpose, as mustard, spice, salt, beer, wine, vinegar, alcohol, opium.

Which however, as they are unnatural stimuli, and difficult to manage in respect to quant.i.ty, are liable to shorten the span of human life, sooner rendering the system incapable of being stimulated into action by the nutrientia. See Sect x.x.xVII. 4. On the same account life is shorter in warmer climates than in more temperate ones.

II. OBSERVATIONS ON THE NUTRIENTIA.

I. 1. The flesh of animals contains more nourishment, and stimulates our absorbent and secerning vessels more powerfully, than the vegetable productions, which we use as food; for the carnivorous animals can fast longer without injury than the graminivorous; and we feel ourselves warmer and stronger after a meal of flesh than of grain. Hence in diseases attended with cold extremities and general debility this kind of diet is preferred; as in rickets, dropsy, scrophula, and in hysteric and hypochondriac cases, and to prevent the returns of agues. Might not flesh in small quant.i.ties bruised to a pulp be more advantageously used in fevers attended with debility than vegetable diet?

That flesh, which is of the darkest colour, generally contains more nourishment, and stimulates our vessels more powerfully, than the white kinds. The flesh of the carnivorous and piscivorous animals is so stimulating, that it seldom enters into the food of European nations, except the swine, the Soland goose (Pelica.n.u.s Ba.s.sa.n.u.s), and formerly the swan. Of these the swine and the swan are fed previously upon vegetable aliment; and the Soland goose is taken in very small quant.i.ty, only as a whet to the appet.i.te. Next to these are the birds, that feed upon insects, which are perhaps the most stimulating and the most nutritive of our usual food.

It is said that a greater quant.i.ty of volatile alkali can be obtained from this kind of flesh, to which has been ascribed its stimulating quality. But it is more probable, that fresh flesh contains only the elements of volatile alkali.

2. Next to the dark coloured flesh of animals, the various tribes of sh.e.l.l-fish seem to claim their place, and the wholesome kinds of mushrooms, which must be esteemed animal food, both for their alkalescent tendency, their stimulating quality, and the quant.i.ty of nourishment, which they afford; as oysters, lobsters, crabfish, shrimps; mushrooms; to which perhaps might be added some of the fish without scales; as the eel, barbolt, tench, smelt, turbot, turtle.

The flesh of many kinds of fish, when it is supposed to have undergone a beginning putrefaction, becomes luminous in the dark. This seems to shew a tendency in the phosphorus to escape, and combine with the oxygen of the atmosphere; and would hence shew, that this kind of flesh is not so perfectly animalized as those before mentioned. This light, as it is frequently seen on rotten wood, and sometimes on veal, which has been kept too long, as I have been told, is commonly supposed to have its cause from putrefaction; but is nevertheless most probably of phosphoric origin, like that seen in the dark on oyster-sh.e.l.ls, which have previously been ignited, and afterwards exposed to the suns.h.i.+ne, and on the Bolognian stone. See Botan. Gard. Vol. I. Cant. I. line 1 and 2, the note.

3. The flesh of young animals, as of lamb, veal, and sucking pigs, supplies us with a still less stimulating food. The broth of these is said to become sour, and continues so a considerable time before it changes into putridity; so much does their flesh partake of the chemical properties of the milk, with which these animals are nourished.

4. The white meats, as of turkey, partridge, pheasant, fowl, with their eggs, seem to be the next in mildness; and hence are generally first allowed to convalescents from inflammatory diseases.

5. Next to those should be ranked the white river-fish, which have scales, as pike, perch, gudgeon.

II. 1. Milk unites the animal with the vegetable source of our nourishment, partaking of the properties of both. As it contains sugar, and will therefore ferment and produce a kind of wine or spirit, which is a common liquor in Siberia; or will run into an acid by simple agitation, as in the churning of cream; and lastly, as it contains coagulable lymph, which will undergo the process of putrefaction like other animal substances, as in old cheese.

2. Milk may be separated by rest or by agitation into cream, b.u.t.ter, b.u.t.ter-milk, whey, curd. The cream is easier of digestion to adults, because it contains less of the coagulum or cheesy part, and is also more nutritive. b.u.t.ter consisting of oil between an animal and vegetable kind contains still more nutriment, and in its recent state is not difficult of digestion if taken in moderate quant.i.ty. See Art. I. 2. 3. 2. b.u.t.ter-milk if it be not bitter is an agreeable and nutritive fluid, if it be bitter it has some putrid parts of the cream in it, which had been kept too long; but is perhaps not less wholesome for being sour to a certain degree: as the inferior people in Scotland choose sour milk in preference to skimmed milk before it is become sour. Whey is the least nutritive and easiest of digestion. And in the spring of the year, when the cows feed on young gra.s.s, it contains so much of vegetable properties, as to become a salutary potation, when drank to about a pint every morning to those, who during the winter have taken too little vegetable nourishment, and who are thence liable to bilious concretions.