University of Virginia Library

VI.—CHEMISTRY AND MATERIA MEDICA.

DR. R. E. ROGERS.

CHEMISTRY.

This subject, included in the medical as well as the general
academic course, and forming a department of the School of

Chemistry and Materia Medica, may be studied separately, or in
conjunction with the latter.

The Lectures, which are delivered twice a week throughout
the session, embrace a very full illustration of all the topics of
theoretical or practical importance in the science, and in its applications
to Mineralogy, Geology, the Chemical Arts, Agriculture,
and Physiology.

Beginning with an account of the phenomena and laws of
Heat, Light, and Electricity, Mechanical and Voltaic, the course
next takes up the doctrines of chemical reaction, presenting a full
and minute view of the principles of definite combination, with
their hypothetical expression in the form of the atomic theory,
and illustrating these doctrines by numerous experiments and
drawings. To this succeeds Pneumatic Chemistry, in which are
discussed the preparations, properties, and applications of the
various gaseous bodies and their compounds.

This is followed by the detailed account of the metals, their
oxides, chlorides, and other compounds, connecting with each
metal the chemical history of its important salts. A résumé is
now given, accompanied by illustrations of the various processes
of analysis deduced from the preceding facts.

Organic Chemistry is next taken up, embracing an account of
all the more important organic acids, alkaloids, and neutral principles,
together with a view of the alcoholic, aceteous, and other
fermentations; the Chemistry of nutrition, growth, respiration,
&c., in the vegetable and animal economy; and that of soils and
manures, as connected with agriculture.

In connection with these topics, experimental illustrations are
given of all the valuable processes for detecting poisons, and for
counteracting their effects. The more important operations of
analysis, as applied to ores, marls, &c., are also described and
exemplified.

Throughout the course, use is constantly made of ample diagrams
illustrating the chemical reactions, according to the method
of equivalents; and the bearings of the recent generalizations of
Dumas, Liebig, Kane, Graham, and others, are particularly referred
to.—Text-Book, Rogers' Turner.

MATERIA MEDICA.

The course of Materia Medica embraces:

I.—General Therapeutics, or an account of the effects of the
various classes of remedies on the organism, and their modus
operandi, as far as understood.

II.—Special Therapeutics, or the application of these agents
to individual diseases, as suggested by experience or the theory of
the particular disease.

III.—A detailed account of the medicinal agents, in their commercial
history, physical properties, chemical habitudes, pharmaceutical
preparations, doses, and the medical applications. This
sub-division of the subject will be preceded by a brief outline of
Systematic and Structural Botany, embracing the Classifications
of Linnæus and Jussieu.

To aid the student in arranging the multifarious details of the
subject, and to abridge the labor of note-taking, a tabular digest
of all the topics treated of, is at each lecture placed before the
class. Upon this and the details of the lecture, the student is expected
to be prepared, as well as upon the corresponding parts of
the text-book.

The means of illustration in Materia Medica are unusually
ample, embracing a very full series of specimens of medicines in
their various states, and an extensive suit of colored drawings of
medical plants, on an enlarged scale. Text-Book: Dunglison's
Therapeutics and Materia Medica.

The lectures on Chemistry are delivered twice a week; those
on Materia Medica once a week, throughout the course. Meetings
for examinations are held separately generally three times a
week.