PREFATORY NOTICE.

THE following outlines of the Lectures on Materia Medica and Pharmacy have been prepared, that the Student attending the course may possess a guide to the leading facts and principles comprised in so extended a subject.

No doubt can exist with respect to the advantages of such assistance. The strongest memory finds difficulty in appropriating all that is communicated by oral instruction, and many important points are lost to the generality of students. The text-books which treat of the same department pursue neither the order nor the method presented in the lectures, and loss of time is entailed by reading all that is relevant or irrelevant to the portion of the subject under consideration at any given period. The United States Dispensatory, and Pereira's Elements of Materia Medica, have been recommended in connection with the course; but so extensive is their range that they are scarcely adapted for the momentary requisitions of the student.

In the synopsis here given, a framework is afforded, which may, with ordinary industry, be filled in by notes

taken at the time the lectures are delivered, or by reference to the works specified. In the latter way much can be accomplished in the interim of the courses.

The motive which has influenced me in compiling the work from my manuscript notes, is the desire to give the pupils of the University a thorough knowledge of the important branch of medicine which it is my duty to teach. To the character of an independent treatise the work presents no claim; in fact, a large proportion of it requires the explanations given in the lecture room.

With the hope that it may prove serviceable, it has been inscribed to those in whose welfare I have the highest interest, and for whose benefit the labor of teaching becomes a pleasing occupation.

OCTOBER, 1855.

PARTS TO WHICH MEDICINES ARE APPLIED.

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the injection used should therefore be small in quantity and unirritating. Mucilage in some form is usually employed as the vehicle, and the bulk of it varies, with the age, from f3j to f3j. The dose of the medicine to be employed is usually stated to be three times greater than that by the stomach. This rule of augmentation is not to be absolutely followed, as there are exceptions; and even with respect to some medicines the reverse may be necessary. Orfila's statement with respect to opium and tobacco.

If the design be to act upon the bowels, large quantities are to be used, but the amount proportioned to the age. For an adult a pint is usually directed, but larger quantities are sometimes required. An infant requires an ounce or more; a child of five years, three or four. Advantages and disadvantages of employment. Mode of forming injections, and the instruments employed for their administration.

Solids introduced into the rectum are called suppositories. Substances used, and the intention. Gases are sometimes used. The modes of using them.

III. Urethra and Bladder.-These organs are simply used for the local impression to be made upon them.

IV. Vagina. This is used both to make a local impression and impress the system. The treatment of the diseases of females presents numerous cases in which medication is directed to this organ.

V. Nostrils and Bucco-Guttural Mucous Membrane.

VI. Lungs. Substances are introduced into the lungs to make a local impression in the case of disease located in them, or to act on the system generally. They must be in the form of impalpable powder, or in that of vapor. Method of treatment. based on the local impression, and the diseases to which it is applicable, stated.

To produce an impression upon the system, the substances inhaled must be absorbed. Instances of such impression given. The great relative absorbing power of the lungs exhibited, and the reasons given why the introduction of vapors by these organs is more rapid and their effects more profound. Inhaling apparatus, and methods of using them.

teria Medica, whether simple or modified, are called Medicines. PHARMACY is the art of preparing them for use; and by THERAPEUTICS is meant the application, guided by principles, which is made of them in the treatment of disease. PHARMACOLOGY embraces all of these subjects.

Medicines may be defined to be substances, derived from the organic and inorganic kingdoms, which inherently possess the power of affecting the solids and fluids of the body, and, through them, so changing the functional and organic movements as to be serviceable in diseased conditions.

Some articles of Diet will be found in the list of the Materia Medica, which have been there placed for convenience, in consequence of their adaptation to diseased states of the organs. A distinction is to be drawn between an article of food and a medicine; it depends essentially upon the assimilative capabilities of the former;-exceptions.

A distinction is also to be drawn between a medicine and a poison. This is more difficult, as medicines may become poisons, or poisons may be used as medicines. It is the application which determines whether articles of the materia medica are to be regarded as one or the other. When the impression is inordinate, so as to become injurious to the organs, the article used may be said to be poisonous. The dose, peculiarities of constitution, and pathological conditions, influence the effects. Inordinate medication is poisonous medication.

As there is some relation between food and medicines, so is there between food and poisons. Instances cited where food has acted poisonously.

The study of medicines involves attention to a number of circumstances, which may be divided into such as pertain to them as simple bodies, such as are important in a pharmaceutical point of view, and such as belong to them as therapeutic means.

Crude medicinal articles are obtained, by commerce, in the form of drugs, and, as such, must be studied with respect to their sources or localities of production, their natural history, the modes of collecting and preparing them for the market, and their sensible properties.