A Mechanical Account of Poisons in Several Essays

by Richard Mead

BY

RICHARD MEAD, M.D.F.R.S.

And Physician to St. Thomas’s Hospital.

The Second Edition, Revised, with Additions.

LONDON:

Printed by J. M. for RALPH SMITH at the Bible, under the Piazza’s, of the Royal Exchange, Cornhill. 1708.

THE PREFACE

To give an exact and particular Account of the Nature and Manner of acting of Poisons, is no easie Matter; but to Discourse more intelligibly of Them than Authors have hitherto done, not very difficult. One may without much Pains shew their Effects to be owing to something more than the bare Qualities of Heat or Cold; and Discover the Footsteps of Mechanism in those surprizing Phænomena which are commonly ascribed to some Occult or Unknown Principle. But to Unravel the Springs of the several Motions upon which such Appearances do depend, and Trace up all the Symptoms to their First Causes, requires some Art as well as Labour; and that both upon the account of the Exquisite Fineness, and marvellous Composition, of the Animal Machine in which they are Transacted, and of the Minuteness of those Bodies which have the force to induce in it such Sudden and Violent Alterations.

I have attempted somewhat this way in the following Essays; in which I do not promise Methodical, and Finish’d Treatises, but only some short Hints of Natural History, and Rude Strokes of Reasoning; which, if put together, and rightly Improved, may perhaps serve to furnish out a more tolerable SPECIMEN of the DOCTRINE of POISONS, than has yet been Published.

The First Draught of this small Piece, I made some Years since, Entertaining my self at Leisure Hours, with Experiments on Vipers, and other Venomous Creatures; Examining now and then the Texture of Arsenic, Mercury Sublimate, and the like Malignant Substances; Turning over what Authors had said on the several Subjects, and making such Remarks as from Time to Time Occurr’d.