[208]. Journal de Physiologie; Juillet, 1823.
[209]. For a farther account of this extraordinary law of Electro-Chemistry, the reader may consult my work on the Elements of Medical Chemistry.
[210]. These experiments have been repeated at the Jardin des Plantes, with similar results; it farther appears that a certain quantity of Nitrate of Potass added to the water injected into the bladder will expedite the decomposition.
[211]. This, it must be confessed, is singularly unfortunate, if the opinion already expressed be true (page 121) viz. that at least two-thirds of the whole number of calculi originate from this acid.
[212]. The word Antidote is derived from αντὶ, against, and διδωμὶ, I give; as being a medicine given against poison, either by way of cure or preservative. The word is also sometimes used in a more general sense, for any compounded medicine; thus Peter Damian speaks of a person who in his whole life never took an antidote. It is likewise used by some authors in a less proper sense, for any remedy against any disease, chiefly if it be inveterate, and arise from some ulcer or abscess; and lastly, the term has been used to signify a perpetual form of medicines, otherwise called Opiates, or more properly Confections.
[213]. The reader will find this subject treated more fully in the second volume of my work on Medical Jurisprudence.
[214]. See the history of Theriaca at page 28 note.
[215]. John, king of Castille, as Tissot relates, was poisoned by a pair of boots, prepared by a Turk; Henry IV, by gloves; Louis XIV fearing a project to poison Philip V, prohibited his opening letters, or putting on gloves (Tissot Traité des Nerfs, T. 1. P. 11. page 13;) Plouquet has the following remark upon this subject, “Huc et ignota illa venena pertinent, quibus epistolæ chirothecæ, et ejusmodi infici, et vim adeo toxicam induere dicuntur, ut lectio ejusmodi epistolæ, indutus chirothecæ subitam mortem causentur.” (Comment. Med. super Homicid. page 184.) Pope Clement VII is said by Zacchias to have been poisoned by the fumes of a taper, (Quæst. Med. Leg.); and a priest is reported to have offered to destroy Queen Elizabeth by poisoning her saddle. (Sir Edward Coke, in the trial of Sir John Hollis.) Bishop Burnet, in the history of his own times (vol. 2. p. 230.) says, that some believed Charles the Second to have been poisoned through the medium of snuff.
[216]. This conceit does not appear to have been confined to the ignorant alone, for we learn from Spratt’s History of the Royal Society, that very shortly after the institution of that learned body, a series of questions was drawn up by their direction, for the purpose of being submitted to the Chinese and Indians, which clearly shews their belief in the possibility of such an operation, viz. “Whether the Indians can so prepare that stupifying herb, Datura, that they make it lie several days, months, years, according as they will have it, in a man’s body, without doing him any hurt, and at the end kill him without missing half an hour’s time?”
[217]. Dr. Mead adopted this opinion, but he became so convinced of its inadequacy that, in the later editions of his work on Poisons, he withdrew the hypothesis. It is hardly necessary to observe that upon its abandonment, a host of popular antidotes at once fell into disuse; for as long as the injury was supposed to arise from mechanical irritation, oils, fats, and other similar remedies were held capable of obtunding the acrimony. So has the abandonment of other conceits and hypotheses cleared away many absurd articles from the list of Antidotes; see page [26].