An Experimental Inquiry Into the Physiology of Cutaneous Absorption and Its Application to Therapeutics - Softcover

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1838. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV. ABSORPTION OF MEDICINAL AGENTS. The division upon which we now enter constitutes, in my opinion, by far the most important section of our task. Errors may creep into the nicest calculations, more especially when, as occurred in our bath experiments, the original weights are large, while the variations are slight; and the evidence drawn from the contagion of disease will be always' cavilled at, until we have discovered something more regarding its nature. But when the application of a drug to the exterior of the body is followed by the usual physiological and therapeutic effects; nay more, when its presence may be detected in the blood, or the excretions, no shadow of a doubt can remain, that the substance so applied has been absorbed into the system. That such is the case I trust to prove in the following pages, and to shew, moreover, that the effects observed cannot be attributed to pulmonary absorption. This source of fallacy has been much insisted upon, but it is evidently applicable to those drugs only which are extremely volatile, or are administered in vapour, though Rousseau has gone to the absurd length of asserting, that even in frictions with mercurial ointment, the metal is volatilised, and thus enters the body; forgetting that if such were the case, the unfortunate individual who performed the frictions would be far more readily salivated than the patient,--a result which we know from ample experience does not take place. But I hasten to commence, without further preliminaries; and according to my original plan, I shall treat, 1st, Of the absorption of solids; 2d, Of liquids; and, 3d, Of gases and vapours,--this method being adopted, because, while it undoubtedly renders a certain degree of repetition necessary, it avoids the far ...

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