scholarly journals XLVIII.—On the Physiological Action of the Calabar Bean (Physostigma venenosum, Balf.)

1867 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 715-787 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas R. Fraser
Keyword(s):  
Spinal Cord ◽  
Medical Practice ◽  
General Medical Practice ◽  
Materia Medica ◽  
Therapeutic Uses ◽  
Rate Of Absorption ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University ◽  
Great Energy ◽  
Rapid Contraction

In 1855, the Professor of Materia Medica in the University of Edinburgh, in a paper read before this Society, directed the attention of physiologists to some of the remarkable properties of the Calabar bean. In 1862, I presented a graduation thesis to the University of Edinburgh on the “Characters, Actions and Therapeutic Uses of the Ordeal Bean of Calabar.” The principal results I had obtained at that time were that this substance causes death by either syncope or asphyxia, the latter being due to an effect on the spinal cord and on the respiratory centres; that the symptoms resemble those of cardiac or pulmonary embarrassment, according to the quantity of the poison administered, and to its rate of absorption; and, also, that the topical application of this agent to the eyeball, or to its neighbourhood, produces a marked and rapid contraction of the pupil and various disturbances of vision. Since then, and more especially because of the peculiarity of the last of these conclusions, a lively interest has been taken in this substance. Its actions on the eye have been investigated by nearly all the leading ophthalmologists of Europe and of America, and its general physiology has occupied the attention of many distinguished students of biology. Nor have these labours been barren of practical results. Ophthalmic medicine has adopted this agent as one of its important remedies, and there can be little doubt that general medical practice will soon include in its Pharmacopœia a drug of so great energy.

John Smith Flett, 1869-1947

1948 ◽  
Vol 5 (16) ◽  
pp. 688-696
Keyword(s):  
Medical Practice ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
Geological Survey ◽  
Small Island ◽  
Geological Museum ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University ◽  
Short Time

John Smith Flett, who died on 26 January 1947, at the age of seventy-seven, has left an abiding mark on British geology, both as a scientific investigator and as an official administrator. His scientific contributions dealt mainly with petrography and many of them were necessarily of a routine and official character. His greatest services to his science were undoubtedly those given during his fifteen years as Director of His Majesty’s Geological Survey. In the unsettled and transitional period between the wars, it was indeed fortunate for the Survey and for geology that a man of Flett’s stamp—in intellect keen and acute, in character resolute and virile—should be at the helm. Under his guidance there arose the magnificent Geological Museum at South Kensington —a monument to a vision persistently followed. When we contemplate the outstanding part that the geologists of this small island have played in the foundation and evolution of their science, we must rejoice that at last an exhibition worthy of that record can be made. Flett was born in Kirkwall, Orkney, and received his early education at the Burgh School of that town. He passed to George Watson’s College, Edinburgh, and thence to the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated M.A., B.Sc. (with honours in Natural Science), in 1892 and M.B., C.M., in 1894. During his academic career he gained an extraordinary variety of prizes, medals and scholarships. This was no ephemeral brilliance or inclination, and he maintained an interest in subjects outside his professional orbit all his life; he was especially attracted to literature of a somewhat caustic or satiric cast. After graduation, Flett was for a short time in medical practice but, in 1895, he forsook that career and turned himself for good to geology.

The Trouble with Opium. Taste, Reason and Experience in Late Galenic Pharmacology with Special Regard to the University of Leiden (1575–1625)

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 287-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saskia Klerk
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Medical Practice ◽  
The Body ◽  
Materia Medica ◽  
University Of Leiden ◽  
Special Regard ◽  
The University ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Core Problem

In the seventeenth century, the discrepancy between the taste of some drugs and their effects on the body was used to criticize Galenic medicine. In this paper, I argue that such contradictions were brought to light by the sixteenth-century study of drug properties within the Galenic tradition itself. Investigating how the taste of a drug corresponded to the effects it had on the body became a core problem for maintaining a medical practice that was both rational and effective. I discuss four physicians, connected to the University of Leiden, who attempted to understand drug properties, including taste, within a Galenic framework. The sixteenth-century discussions about the relationship between the senses, reason and experience, will help us understand the seventeenth-century criticism of Galenic medicine and the importance of discussions about materia medica for ideas regarding the properties of matter proposed in this period.


scholarly journals VIII. Contributions to the study of the action sea-snake venoms.— Part I. Venoms of Enhydrina valakadien and Enliydris curtus

1905 ◽  
Vol 197 (225-238) ◽  
pp. 249-279 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Previous Literature ◽  
Snake Venoms ◽  
Sea Snake ◽  
Materia Medica ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Physiology Laboratory ◽  
The University

The following paper is the first of a series of articles which we hope to publish on the Action of Sea-snake Venoms. The work dealt with herein was carried out mainly in the Materia Medica Laboratory of the University of Edinburgh. The kymographic work, however, was done in the Physiology Laboratory of that University, and we desire to express our sense of indebtedness to Professor E. A. Schafer for permitting us to use his apparatus. Previous Literature of the Subject . This is very scanty. The main contributions have been the recent ones by Captain Leonard Rogers, to which we shall have frequent occasion to refer. They appear in the ‘Proceedings’ of the Royal Society, May 7th, 1903, and June 18th, 1903.

John Robertson Henderson (1863–1925): Scotland, India and anomuran taxonomy

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-75
Author(s):  
P. G. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Christian College ◽  
Apparent Absence ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
Marine Station ◽  
The University ◽  
Crustacean Taxonomy

John Robertson Henderson was born in Scotland and educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he qualified as a doctor. His interest in marine natural history was fostered at the Scottish Marine Station for Scientific Research at Granton (near Edinburgh) where his focus on anomuran crustaceans emerged, to the extent that he was eventually invited to compile the anomuran volume of the Challenger expedition reports. He left Scotland for India in autumn 1885 to take up the Chair of Zoology at Madras Christian College, shortly after its establishment. He continued working on crustacean taxonomy, producing substantial contributions to the field; returning to Scotland in retirement in 1919. The apparent absence of communication with Alfred William Alcock, a surgeon-naturalist with overlapping interests in India, is highlighted but not resolved.

The training of a polar scientist: Patrick Geddes and the student career of William Speirs Bruce

2002 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. N. SWINNEY
Keyword(s):  
Future Career ◽  
New Information ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University

ABSTRACT: The university career of the polar scientist William Speirs Bruce (1867–is examined in relation to new information, discovered amongst the Bruce papers in the University of Edinburgh, which elucidates the role played by Patrick Geddes in shaping Bruce's future career. Previous accounts of Bruce's university years, based mainly on the biography by Rudmose Brown (1923), are shown to be in error in several details.

Adam Ferguson and the Idea of Civil Society

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Smith
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Commercial Society ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
The University

Adam Ferguson was a Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and a leading member of the Scottish Enlightenment. A friend of David Hume and Adam Smith, Ferguson was among the leading exponents of the Scottish Enlightenment’s attempts to develop a science of man and was among the first in the English speaking world to make use of the terms civilization, civil society, and political science. This book challenges many of the prevailing assumptions about Ferguson’s thinking. It explores how Ferguson sought to create a methodology for moral science that combined empirically based social theory with normative moralising with a view to supporting the virtuous education of the British elite. The Ferguson that emerges is far from the stereotyped image of a nostalgic republican sceptical about modernity, and instead is one much closer to the mainstream Scottish Enlightenment’s defence of eighteenth century British commercial society.

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