The Modern Treatment of Diseases of the Liver (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II. CHOLAGOGUES. Summary: --Cholagogue Medicaments--Physiological Experiments on Cholagogues--Process of Rohrig--Process of Rutherford and Vignal--Cholagogue Purgatives--Cholagogue Action of Calomel--New Cholagogues of Vegetable Origin--Euonymin--Iridin--Baptisin--Hydrastin--Juglandin--Sanguinarin--Phytolaccin--Cholagogues of Mineral Origin--On the Action of Alkalies as Cholagogues. Gentlemen: --When I was lecturing on purgatives, I told you that there were certain of them which act by augmenting the secretion of bile. It is to this group that the name of cholagogues has been given. I told you, also, that I was intending to study more at length this class of purgatives when I came to diseases of the liver, and the subject properly comes up for consideration to day. But before enumerating the different substances which enter into this group, I will first examine upon what experimental bases the study of cholagogues rests. Formerly it was by examination of the stools that physicians were enabled to classify these medicaments, and according as the stools were more or less bilious, the medicine was considered as having a greater or less action on the liver and was reckoned cholagogue. This method, which was not a very scientific one, has given place to more precise researches, for which we are principally indebted to certain foreign physicians. In 1863 Hanfield Jones was the first to enter on this experimental method. He gave certain medicinal substances to animals which he afterwards killed, and he then examined the state of the liver and intestines; according as he found the hepatic gland more or less congested, he concluded that the medicament had a more or less energetic action on the biliary secretion. This it must be admitted, was a somewhat rude .