Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/39

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and then fct by for a few days,- in a warm, or at leaft a very dry place. In this manner are to be prepared amber, anti- mony, bezoar, which fhould be levigated with fpirit of wine inftead of water, blood-ftone, calamy, firft calcined for the tife of the makers of brafs, chalk, coral, crabs claws, crabs eyes (fo called); egg-fhells cleanfed from the membrane ad- hering to them by boiling in water, oyfter-fhells firft cleanfed, pearls, verdegreafe, tutty.

In antimony, calamy, and tutty, lingular care ought to he taken to reduce them to the raoft fubtle powder that can be. P ember ton's College Difp. p. 145. Mechanical Operation of Medicines, To account for the ' operaiions of Medicines mechanically, feems to have been the favourite fcheme of phyficians and phyfiologers of the laft and prefent century. Stahl and his difciples reject thefe accounts, and think them fufficiently refuted by the operation of opium, and of aftringents. One grain of opium, properly taken, will, for a time, aflwage pains all over the body. A very few grains of crocus martis aftringens fometimes flop an hemoptyfis, be- fore they can be fuppofed to have entered into the humours of the body. Is it not paft all belief, fay they, that fo few grains mixed with fo many pounds or fluids, fhouki retain any mecha- nical force, efpecially as it is well known that aftringents lofe their force by dilution. They farther urge, that the various effects of the fame Medicine are a refutation of the mechanical hopothefis; thus emetics fometimes purge, and vice verfa; aftringents encreafe hemorrhages ; opium excites alacrity in fome, inftead of ftupifying. Again, the fight, or even bare imagination of fome Medicines, will produce a fenfible effect on the body, without any contact. Stahl and his followers therefore hold, that Medicines operate chiefly by exciting the vital fenfc ; and that this is the chief effect of Medicines, even where they feem moft to ad mechanically. See Junchr's Confp. Therap. p. 3. feq.

Hoffman, Heifter, and others, have attacked the hypothefis of Stahl. We fhall not pretend to give any farther account of the controverfy. Perhaps in this, as in others, there may be a good deal of logomachy. Strictly fpeaking, mechanical principles muff be infufneient to account for the operation of Medicines, as this fometimes undoubtedly depends (in the frimes via: at leaft) on chemical principles ; and no body has hitherto been able to account mechanically for the phenomena of chemiftry. The laws of the minima nature have not hi- therto been reduced to thofe of the preffure and impulfe of large fenfible maffes. And perhaps when the laws, that ob- tain in the minute parts of matter, have been found, we fhall frill be at a lofs to account for all the phenomena of animated bodies, particularly the human.

Heifter fays, Stahl pretends that the rational foul and nature are fynonimous terms; and that it is the rational foul which formed the foetus in the womb, and which directs all vital, animal, and natural actions, to the prefervation of the body ; hence fometimes exciting evacuations, fometimes fpafms, to get rid of diforders. Heifter, DilTert. de Medicin. Mechan. prseftantia in Compend. Medicin. Practic. where he endea- vours to refute the Stahlians.

Juncker, who wrote according to Stahl's principles, does not deny that there is fomething mechanical in the. operation of Medicines independantly of the will or fpontaneity of nature ; but he afTcrts that their chief operation is owing to nature, which makes ufe of the remedy to attain its end. His words are, Operationem- Medicamentorum ab ipfa natura gubemari innumercs conformant Obfervat'toncs. Licet enim non negamus, fubejfc interdum aclioni eorum aliquid mechanici, a nature arbitrio non pendentis, ianti tamen hoc non ejl habendum, ut operandi modus ilti maxime adferibi mereatur. A potiori enim fit denominatio, & natura utitur remedio ad finem fuum. Juncker, Confpect. Therap. p. I, 2.

A late author obferves, as to Medicines, that let what difeafe foeverbe named, and any Medicine, as univerfally ufeful in it, yet. he can fhew circumftances of patients, or of the dif- eafe, where that Medicine would be very improper. He men- tions feveral inftances of this kind. See Medic. EiT. Edinb. vol. 1. p. 267. feq. Medicines/?-*™ Metals. Seethe article Metals. Pocket Medicines, in furgery, are fuch neceffary remedies as the furgeon ought never to be without; but always to carry in a convenient cafe or box about him. Thefe are the com- mon digeftive ointment, and the brown or ^Egyptian oint- ment, for cleanfingand digefting foul ulcers, and fome vulne- rary balfams, as the limmentum Arc&i, or the balfam of Peru, of Gilead, or Capivi, or the Samaritan balfam: To thefe mu(t alfb be added a plafter or two, as the diachylon, or ftyp- ticumCrollii, fince one or other of thefe is almoft conftantly wanted. Neither fhould there be wanting a piece of blue vi- triol for the taking down luxuriant flefh, and to flop hemorr- hages ; but if vitriol is wanting, burnt alum, red precipitate, the infernal ftone, or any other corrofive Medicine, will fupply its place in corrofive intentions, and the laft will alfo ferve to open abfceflbs, to make iffues, and perform many other operations of that kind. With thefe there mould always be kept in rea- dinefs alfo a quantity of fcraped lint, that the furgeon may be able to give immediate afliftance to wounded perfons, fince, if he is unprepared for this, they may be eafily taken off by an hemorrhage, a circumftance which ought alfo to prevail Suppl. Vol. II.

with the furgeon never to" be wholly unprovided wrth banda- ges. Heifter'% Surg. p. n. MEDIMNUM, A&V*, among the Greeks, a meafure of ca- pacity, holding fix Roman modii or bufhcls. Danet. in voc. MEDINE, an Egyptian piece money, of iron filver'd over,- and; about the fize of a filver three-pence. Pocock\ Egypt, p. xjq MEDINUS, a name given by fome to the medus, a ftone cele- brated by the writers of the middle ages for many imaginary virtues. See the article Medus. MEDITRINALIA, among the Romans, feafts inftituted in honour of the goddefs Meditrina, and celebrated on the 30th of September. They were fo called from medendo i becaufe the Romans then began to drink new wine, which they mixed with old, and that fcrved them inftead of phyfic. MEDIUM, in botany, a name given by Diofcorides to the violet, and by Lobe!, to the fea flag-flower, or iris maritima narbonenfis. Ger. Emac. Ind. 2. MEDLAR, Mepjihts, in botany. See the article Me psilus* We have two kinds of Medlar propagated very frequently in orchards, for the fake of their fruit ; the one is the common Medlar, or, as it is called by fome, the Nottingham Medlar $ the other the Dutch Medlar. The firft of thefe was once al- moft the only kind known in England ; but fince the other has been introduced, it is found fo much fuperior in the fize, and flavour of the fruit, that it is now almoft the only kind thought wortli the cultivating.

They are propagated by budding or grafting them upon the hawthorn, or the pear ftock, upon either of which they take very well, and may be afterwards tranfplanted into the fruit- garden, either as ftandards, or trained up againft an efpalier, in both which methods they will fucceed very well. If the larger fort are trained up in an efpalier, the fruit will be much larger ; but great care muft be taken in the pruning, not to fhorten the bearing branches, for the fruit is almoft all pro- duced at the extremities of thefe. The Medlar will grow on any foil ; but on a moift and ftrong foil, the fruit will grow larger, and on a dry one, it will, though fmaller, be much- better tafted. Miller's Gardener's Diet. The fruit fhould be fuffered to remain on the branches till October, at which time it will begin to fall of itfelf, and it fhould then be gathered in the middle of a dry day, and laid up in a dry place till fort, and beginning to decay, which is uiually about a month after it is gathered ; at this time they are fit for eating, for, till they begin to decay, they are too harfh for the palate. MEDOKINA, in natural hiftory, the name of a fpecies of

oyfter. See the article Ostrea. MEDULLA {Cycl )— Medulla Spinali. In fifties, the fpi- nal marrow does not run through the middle of the vertebre, as it does in other animals, but is carried through a whole feries of the apophyfes which ftand on the upper part of the bone, and are therefore called the apophyfes dorjales, to diftin- guifh them from the others, which their iituation occafions to be called the lateral and ventral. All thefe dorfal apophyfes of the vertebrse are hollow at their bafe, and by that means afford a continued channel for this marrow. The bales of the lower apophyfes reaching from the anus to the tail, have alfo the fame fort of hollow at their bafe ; but this ferves only for the paffr.ge of the larger blood-veflels. MEDUS, or Medinus, a name given by the writers of the middle ages to a ftone brought from Media, of which they fay there were two kinds, the one black, and the other green. They attribute many ftrange virtues to thefe ftones ; the black they fay was a fatal poifon when taken inwardly, but that if wetted with milk, and rubbed upon the fkin of a woman with child, it caufed her to bring forth a boy. This, and a number of other as probable virtues, did thefe ignorant and fanciful writers beftow at pleafure on ftones never known to the world before, and of which themfelves gave no defcriptions. This feems to be only a falfe hiftory of the Medea of Pliny. MEDUSiE Caput, in natural hiftory, a name given by authors to thejlella marina, called by fome, from its various branch- ings, jlella arborefcens. Rumphius, Gefner, and many other authors, have defcribed this ftrange fifh in its recent ftate, and in the acta eruditorum, we have an accurate figure, and a very remarkable account of one which was found foflile,. and preferved in a remarkably perfect manner in ftone. The ftone in which it was found was of the Affile or flaty kind, and it was fo large as to extend over a piece of this ftone of four foot in length, and between three and four in: breadth. The body of the fifh, from which all the reft feemed originally to have arifen, lay at one corner of the ftone, and the arms extended themfelves lengthways in a very diftinct and natural manner the whole length of the ftone; and from thefe there parted, on every fide, other fmaller ones, and thefe were finally divided into others more minute, in fuch a manner as to reprefent the niceft painting. Aa. Erudit. Ann. 1725. p. 377.

The ftudy of foflils is more improved by this fingle fpeci- men, than by thoufands of others, and by the reafonings of almoft as many authors. The foflils called entrochi, have always perplexed the writers on thefe fubjects to account for; fome having judged them a fort of ftony vegetables ; fome lufus natura 5 and others as different things j but in I thif