Observations, medical and literary relative to the history of poison : read before the Medico-Botanical Society of London, June 8, 1830 : the Right Hon. Earl Stanhope, President, in the chair ... / by John Clendinning.

  • Clendinning, J. (John), 1798-1848.
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations, medical and literary relative to the history of poison : read before the Medico-Botanical Society of London, June 8, 1830 : the Right Hon. Earl Stanhope, President, in the chair ... / by John Clendinning. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    12/44 (page 10)
    and variety of the researches trial for mala praxis, or for any one of several other possible transgressions, civil or criminal. Nor does the catalogue of its relations to other branches of the science of creation end here. Amongst insects, fshes, and reptiles, are to be met with some of the most active Poisons. Of the first, or insect tribe, we may refer to the Cantharid genus; of the second, or finny race, I may cite the Rock fish, the Barracuta, the King fish, and, most deadly of all, the clupea thryssa, or yellow billed Sprat; and of the third, or reptile class, there are, unhappily, too many tremendous examples in the genera, Crotalus, Boa, and Coluber. Thus State Medicine, both in its fo- rensic and political departments, is more or less dovetailed with Entomology, Icthyology, and Ophiology. In like manner it is connected with Mineralogy, many ofkthe principal Poisons being prominent agents in the history of fossils; and with Anatomy, in the most abstruse branches of that science, as comprehending the doctrine of herma-phroditism, and other mon- strosity. To its numerous leanings and dependencies on natural science above alluded to, we have to add other, and not less onerous, requirements. The Pro- fessor of State Medicine must, to an extensive know- ledge of nature, add some acquaintance with Law. Now, in these kingdoms, there is no code or statute book ; there are laws without end, and from almost every source; civil, feudal, traditional, canonical, parliamentary, maritime; together with a copious supplement of laws, called precedents, decisions, and so forth, and for which we are indebted to the wisdom of the dignitaries of our courts of justice. Of these