In what way is the action of drugs to be discovered? : an essay / by William Sharp, M.D.

  • Sharp, William, 1805-1896.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: In what way is the action of drugs to be discovered? : an essay / by William Sharp, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    THE ACTION OF DRUGS. This subject comprises several questions, among tliem the following:— I. In what way is the action of drugs to be dis- covered ? II. What is the action of drugs ? III. How is the action of each drug to be distinguished from that of all others ? Part. I. In this Essay the first question is considered: In what way is the action of drugs to be dis- covered ? Nothing more clearly betrays the extent of the weakness and infirmity into which the human mind has fallen than the perverted ingenuity it has shown, and the mistaken ways it has followed, in respect to the ends at which it has aimed. On most, if not on all subjects which man's mind has attempted to investigate, many erroneous methods, per- haps all possible ones, have been pursued before the true method has been found. We shall see an eminent illustration of this fact if we now consider the action of drugs, and take up the first question proposed, namely, in what way is the action of drugs to be discovered? If we look back through the avenue of five-and-twenty centuries we shall find that the knowledge of the action of drugs has been sought for in very various ways. We shall see that some of these ways are manifestly wrong, and that the rest are more or less imperfect. The or- thodox school of medicine acknowledges that all have failed. Let us briefly examine these ways. 1. Drugs have been regarded superstitiously. Every kind of virtue has been attributed superstitiously a 2