THE LONDON ENCYCLOPÆDIA, OR UNIVERSAL DICTIONARY OF SCIENCE, ART, LITERATURE, AND PRACTICAL MECHANICS, COMPRISING A POPULAR VIEW OF THE PRESENT STATE OF KNOWLEDGE, ILLUSTRATED BY NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS, A GENERAL ATLAS, AND APPROPRIATE DIAGRAMS. Sie oportet ad librum, presertim miscellanei generis, legendum accedere lectorem, ut solet ad convivium conviva civilis. A reader should sit down to a book, especially of the miscellaneous kind, as a well-behaved visitor does to a banquet. The BY THE ORIGINAL EDITOR OF THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA METROPOLITANA, ASSISTED BY EMINENT PROFESSIONAL AND OTHER GENTLEMEN. IN TWENTY-TWO VOLUMES. VOL. XIV. LONDON: PRINTED FOR THOMAS TEGG, 73, CHEAPSIDE; R. GRIFFIN & Co., GLASGOW; TEGG AND CO., DUBLIN; ALSO J. & S. A. TEGG, 1839. LONDON THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA. MEDICINE. 7 Lat. medicus, medicina; Fr. medecine. Physical, or relating to the healMedicaing art. ment is any thing used in that art; a topical application. To medicate, tincture or impregnate with medicine to MEDICAL, adj. MED'ICALLY, adv. MEDICAMENT, N. S. MEDICAMENTAL, adj. MEDICAMENTALLY, adv. MED'ICATE, t. a. MEDICATION, n. S. MEDICINABLE, adj. MEDICINAL, MEDICINALLY, adv. MEDICINE, n. s. & v. a. or any thing of a medicinal nature. Medicinable and medicinal, having the power of healing, or of physic; appertaining to physic. Medicine is physic; any remedy prescribed by the faculty: the verb is obsolete, but used by Shakspeare as signifying to operate upon as physic. A merry heart doeth good like a medicine; but a broken spirit drieth the bones. Prov. xvii. 22. O, my dear father! restauration, hang Thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss Repair those violent harms. Shakspeare. King Lear. Not all the drowsy syrups of the world Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep Which thou owedst yesterday. Shakspeare. Come with swords as medicinal as true, Honest as either; to purge him of that humour That presses him from sleep. Id. Winter's Tale. Every medicine is an innovation, and he that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator; and if time of course alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end? Lord Bacon. The watering of the plant with an infusion of the medicine may have more force than the rest, because the medication is oft renewed. Id. To this may be ascribed the great effects of medicated waters. Arbuthnot. No present health can health ensure Cowper. 1. MEDICINE, from Lat. medico, to heal, in its verbal signification, means, as we have seen, the art of curing, mitigating, and preventing disease; as a substantive it signifies the material employed to effect these purposes. 2. In treating of this subject, as a science and an art, we shall first present our readers with an historical account of the successive revolutions which medicine has undergone from the earliest periods; we shall then give a short estimate of its present condition; engage-in the consideration of classifying or arranging disease; and finally treat of ailments as they occur in practice, enquiring into their sources remote and immediate, and the methods best adapted to remedy and re move them. |