IN all the objections which have been made to M. Magendie's views about the action of carbonate of soda, certain necessary principles have been lost sight of ; moreover, M. Magendie himself, throughout the whole of his experiments, is liable to the same charge in more important matters still. When M. Magendie injects carbonate of soda into the veins of an animal whose solids and fluids are all in the normal condition, and organic lesion is the consequence, he is not on that account justified in

more »

... inferring that carbonate of soda is an injurious drug; that it should not be used in a state of disease, where the fluids are in an abnormal condition ; for this makes all the difference. It being administered as a remedy only where the fluids are in a state of abnormal acidity, which is, according to his own ex periments, as injurious as abnormal alkalinity. I have had a gentleman under my care for 1 the last four or five years, who has been seen by many of the most eminent physicians and 1 surgeons in London, with the lithic diathesis and deposit in the kidney, caused, as I bei lieve it always is, by abnormal acidity of the stomach, which when taken into the system displaces urea from its chemical associations. He has taken alkalies in large quantities during the whole period, and knows well the necessity of abstaining from all acids ; and so long as there is acidity to neutralise it is impossible for the alkalies to be injurious, whilst the acidity, if left alone, would soon prove fatal. I find a very general prejudice to the use, as well as. to the abuse, of opium, as well as other remedies ; but if a person be labouring under any local pain or irritation, and the doses be well adjusted, it will allay this without producing sleep, or confined bowels, or any other effect which the patient looks upon with prejudice. Surely M. Magendie would not have us treat all diseases upon chemical principles ; for the disease I have brought forward is only one of a class. Are the only data admitted into our reasoning to be those which we acquire by our sensual perception? If so, how limited our powers. But were the courses and distances of the planets ascertained by actual admeasurement, or by intellectual data worked out? When typhoid exhaustion takes place at the finish of any inflammatory disease, M. Magendie would find the blood defibrinised and attenuated: but this is not a cause, but an effect. Would he deny the pre-existence of that which we call inflammatory excitement ? For if so, he would from the first treat the disease with such remedies as increase the quantity of fibrine in the blood; in short, by tonics. (Heu ! miserabile.) In the L8th experiment, published in last week's LANCET, p. 572, does M. Magendie draw any inference as to the medicinal effect of emetic tartar from the consequences which followed the injection of a drachm of this salt into the veins of a dog? When he states that it is much used in pneumonia with a view to acting on the respiratory organs, and in rheumatism, and that some practitioners give it with quinine in certain intermittent fevers, he has named its empirical uses only ; but if he draw the inference from his experiments, that it does not act, in small doses, as a direct sedative to the nervous, or functional power ; that it does not allay excited action (cutting it short better and shorter than bloodletting, because there is no detraction of substance, no defibrinisation as he would call it, and consequently, a quick convalescence), we must dispute the point; and when he denies that there is such a thing as we call inflam. mation (for what else should we call it?) and clirects his remedial intentions to the effects of inflammation alone, namely, defibrinisation and attenuation of the blood, he publishes dangerous doctrines, and the more so because such a name as his own is attached to them. Moreover, M. Magendie being ignorant of the scientific uses of this medicine (for I am justified in saying so), styles it a vaunted drug, and states that after a few weeks' trial of it (in such diseases as he names, I suppose), he ceased to use it altogether. Also in the 9th experiment, where alum is added to blood, he states that" it is ernployed under the impression that it acts as a very powerful astringent, yet you see," says be, " that not a trace of coagulum is to be detected here." Does M. Magendie infer from this that alum is not an astringent? and that it should act on the fluids as an absorbent instead of on the tone of the solid vessels as an astringent? He states, for the same reason, that it is possible that sulphuric acid rather promotes the escape of blood from the vessels. (See LANCET, p. 542.) Does not a pledget of lint dipped in diluted sulphuric acid stop bleeding from the nose? M. Magendie should make his experiments on the solids as well as on the fluids, and not apply facts of one condition to results of another, which he does when he infers that sulphuric acid may increase haemorrhage. A man of the highest order of intellect may be wrong sometimes. A friend of mine, a most accomplished mathematician, accounted for the buoyancy of steam by supposing it to consist of globules filled with hydrogen.