Volume 2

Medical botany : containing systematic and general descriptions, with plates, of all the medicinal plants, indigenous and exotic, comprehended in the catalogues of the Materia Medica, as published by the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London and Edinburgh : accompanied with a circumstantial detail of their medicinal effects, and of the diseases in which they have been most successfully employed / by William Woodville, M.D. of the Royal College of Physicians, London. In three volumes.

  • Woodville, William, 1752-1805.
Date:
1790-1793
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical botany : containing systematic and general descriptions, with plates, of all the medicinal plants, indigenous and exotic, comprehended in the catalogues of the Materia Medica, as published by the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London and Edinburgh : accompanied with a circumstantial detail of their medicinal effects, and of the diseases in which they have been most successfully employed / by William Woodville, M.D. of the Royal College of Physicians, London. In three volumes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

    9/372 (page 371)
    The principal confumption of Olives is in the preparation of the ^common fallad oil, or oleum olivarum of the pharmacopoeias, which is obtained by grinding and preffing them when thoroughly ripe: the finer and purer oil iffues firft by gentle preflure, and inferior forts on heating the reliduum, and preffing it more ftrongly. The beft Olive oil is of a bright pale amber colour, bland to the tafte, and without any fmell: it becomes rancid by age, and the fooner, if kept in a warm fituation: by cold, at the 38 degree of Fahr. therm, it congeals, and does not become rancid if kept in a degree of cold equal to the freezing point of water/ All the mild ex- prefTed oils of vegetables are nearly of the fame nature; a preference however, in the opinion of Dr. Cullen, fhould be given to the moft fluid, and hence the oil of olives, and that of almonds, are moft commonly dire<^ted for internal ufe. Oil, in fome fhape, forms a confiderable part of our food, both animal and vegetable, and affords much nourilhment: with fome, however, oily fubftances do not unite with the contents of the ftomach, and are frequently brought up by erud:ation ; this happens more efpecially to thofe whofe ftomachs abound with acid to an'Wncommon degree.'' Oil confidered as a medicine is fuppofed to correct acrimony, and to lubricate and relax the fibres; and therefore has been recommended internally to obviate the elfeds of various ftimuli, which produce irritation, and confequent inflammation; on this ground it has generally been pre- fcribed in coughs, catarrhal affections, and erofions. This oil has like wife been fuccefsfully ufed in worm cafes, and in nephritic-pains, fpafms, colics, conftipations of the bowels, &c. Externally it has been found an ufeiul application to bites and ftings of various poifonous animals, ' Mufchenbroick^ Phil. Nat. torn. u. p. 616. ^ Cullen^ M. M. vol. i. p. 302. e See the experiments of William Oliver, related in the Philofophical Tranfadtious, vol. 39- P- 310- which it appears that this man (uffered his arm to be bitten by ferpents, and waited till moft violent A/mptoais enfued, when they were foon removed by applying warm oil of Olives to the afte6ted part. Similar experiments were made upon pigeon?, dogs, &c. with equal fuccefs. It failed however at Oxford, where thefe trials were made upon poultry, &c. See /. c. p. 394. Numerous experiments of this kind were repeated with various fuccefs, and publahed in the Mem. de L'Acad. de Sc. 1737. It is to be regretted, that the particular fpecies of ferpent, by whic i the bites were <)'iven was not afcertained in any of the cafes alluded to. Linnaeus v/as much dif-ip-)ointed^in this ufe of the oil, and fays, that a woman, bitten by the Coluber Cherfen, died in ^rcat agony, though the oil was liberally adminiitcrcd born extermlly and internallv. yhncvn Acad, vol. vt. p. 213. ^ vol. it. p. 407. burns,