times adulterated: this fraud may easily be detected, as iodine dissolves in alcohol, and is converted into vapour of a beautiful violet colour at a temperature of about 350° of Fahrenheit. It is upon this circumstance that its name is founded, which is derived from twòns, of a violet colour. As burnt sponge, which contains iodine, was long known to be the best remedy in the treatment of bronchocele (goitre), Dr. Coindet tried the effects of iodine in the same disease; and as these were very encouraging, and his testimony has been confirmed by that of innumerable practitioners, iodine continues to be the remedy most frequently employed in bronchocele. It is administered with great advantage in scrofula, and many disagreeable eruptions are cured by iodine with less expense of constitution than by mercury. Iodine, by combining with hydrogen, forms hydriodic acid; and this again, by combining with potash, forms the hydriodate of potash, a milder remedy than iodine, and employed in larger doses in the same diseases. Iodine alone will hardly dissolve in water, but its solution is easily accomplished by the assistance of the hydriodate of potash; the solution of the two combined forms the ioduretted hydriodate of potash, a useful medicine. Like other good things, iodine has been abused, and especially by persons who have undertaken the management of their own cases. Thus Dr. Zinck tells us, that "As soon as it was known that the tincture of iodine would cure goitre, it was used at Lausanne in inconceiv able quantities, to such an extent, that I may say with out much exaggeration, that the phial of tincture of iodine took the place of the bon-bons box, for many carried it about with them. With a few exceptions, everybody used it, including those who were afraid that they might have the goitre; and the medicine was sold in the apothecaries' shops without a physician's prescription. I have reckoned up with M. Bischoff, an apothecary of our town, that we are quite within the mark if we estimate at ten pounds' weight the iodine which he used in making the tincture which he sold the first year; and the other apothecaries sold it too. Many persons sent for it from Geneva, erroneously supposing that it would be better. This mania for taking iodine had its victims; but, as a general fact, we had but few in comparison with the great number of persons who used the tincture without any precaution; all those who sank under it had overdosed the remedy." The quantity of iodine stated in the above quotation to have been used by Bischoff the pharmacien, is very great; for ten pounds are seventy thousand grains, and a grain is a common dose, and perhaps more than a proper one. The combinations of iodine with lime, iron, arsenic, barytes, zinc, sulphur, and mercury, have been medicinally used, but can hardly be considered as established remedies. Bromine has many analogies with iodine, and like it exists in many marine substances. It has been found in mother-water of salt-pits, in sea-water, in the waters of a great number of springs, and in sea animals and vegetables. We do not know that any one uses bromine in this country. Majendie says that he employs it when iodine seems not sufficiently active, or when patients have become accustomed to its action. Chlorine takes its name from its colour, for it is derived from xx@pos, green; it is a greenish-yellow gas of a pungent taste and smell. Its specific gravity is 2.4216. It was discovered by Scheele in 1774; but Sir Humphry Davy first showed that it was an elementary body. This gas, diluted with water, has been administered internally in scarlet and typhus fever, and, mingled with the steam of hot water, has been inhaled in phthisis and other diseases. The late Mr. Thackrah of Leeds, who wrote so ably on the diseases of workmen, tried this expedient in the bronchitis, to which flaxmen are peculiarly subject. (Bronchitis means inflammation of the bronchi, the ramifications of the windpipe.) "The inhalation of chlorine gas we have tried rather extensively among the workers in flax, suffering from chronic bronchitis. Sixteen of these men I induced to come every evening, after the day's work, to an apartment, the atmosphere of which we impregnated with chlorine, by pouring muriatic acid on manganese. Here they remained at first for a quarter of an hour, and afterwards for about an hour. One individual declared, the second evening, that he had not slept so soundly for several years as he did the night after inhaling; and, on the fifth evening, all the men declared their breathing freer, and the cough considerably reduced. Those who previously could obtain little unbroken sleep, had better nights; and others had regained appetite. The plan, from accidental circumstances, was omitted for three evenings; a recurrence of cough and dyspnoea was the speedy result; they gladly, therefore, returned to the inhalation of the chlorine, and continued it for several weeks with the most marked advantage. They have since resolved, on the approach of next winter, to take a room to themselves, adjoining their mill or houses, for the purpose of the regular inhalation of chlorine. Two hatters, labouring under similar diseases, joined the flaxmen, and experienced the same benefit." (Thackrah, on the effects of arts, trades, &c. 2nd edit. p. 227.) Chlorine may also be employed as a disinfecting agent, but for this purpose its combinations with lime and soda (the chloride of lime and the chloride of soda) are more commonly used. It must be confessed, however, that if these healthful gases are set free with too liberal a hand, they are as disagreeable as the rankest fumes of animal putridity; used in moderation, however, chloruretted lotions are admirable expedients in those cancerous and gangrenous sores which render the unhappy patient an object of disgust to himself as well as to all around him. Mannite.-When manna is treated with boiling alcohol, filtered, and allowed to cool, crystals of the most beautiful whiteness are gradually precipitated; these are mannite. This substance may be advantageously substituted for manna, as it possesses its laxative powers without its nauseous smell. Majendie informs us that the dose for children is two drachms; half an ounce he found too much. Gentianine, Solanine, Lupuline.-We mention these three together, because they are of little importance. Gentianine is the bitter principle of gentian, and may be made into a tincture with alcohol, or a syrup with sugar; but seems to possess no advantage over the extract, or tincture, or infusion of gentian. Solanine is an alkali extracted from the solanum nigrum (common nightshade), and the solanum dulcamara (bitter-sweet); but, according to Majendie, no one but M. Desfosses has ever been able to procure this alkali, and, though several skilful chemists have performed the processes which he indicates, they have obtained nothing but a little phosphate of lime and vegetable matter without any trace of solanine. We rather think that Majendie is mistaken in this matter. Solanine has been procured by Otto of Brunswick from the bud of the potato, which is also a species of solanum. Lupuline. The active properties of the hop reside in a yellow dusty substance of an aromatic odour which may be separated from the strobiles by means of a sieve. It is called lupuline from the Linnæan name of the hop (humulus lupulus). Some writers assert that it is narcotie; but others, among whom is Majendie, deny this. Croton Oil.-What Horace says of words, in that wellknown passage— Multa renascentur quæ jam cecidere, cadentque may be applied to medicines. Croton oil, for example, which Majendie has inserted in his work on new medicines, was introduced into Europe, as he remarks, in 1630. In 1632, Artus Gyselius extolled its use in dropsy; and Rumphius, in the Herbarium Amboinense (Amsterdam, 1750), says that a drop of this oil taken in Canary wine was a common aperient. This medicine, however, had fallen into oblivion, and was re-introduced in our times by Dr. Conwell. Croton oil is one of the most active of purgatives; a single drop will sometimes produce twenty evacuations, and it is therefore generally reserved for those serious cases (apoplexy or dropsy, for example) where ordinary medicines are too feeble, and where, in the language of the Father of physic, an extreme disease demands an extreme remedy. Like all violent cathartics, croton oil often produces vomiting, though Majendie never saw this effect from its use. Piperine is a febrifuge substance, but not an alkali, procured from black pepper. According to Dr. Meli, who used it in the Ravenna hospital, it cures agues with more certainty than the sulphate of quinine, and in smaller doses. Few practitioners have employed it. Lactucarium, or Extract of Lettuce.-Some persons with irritable stomachs, who are unable to digest other salad herbs, feel no uneasiness when they have eaten lettuce; this immunity apparently arises from the narcotic matter which it contains. The extract of lettuce has now been used for some time, and enjoys a certain reputation as one of the milder narcotics. The dose is five grains or more. Majendie calls it thridace, from Opidas, a lettuce. The Salts of Gold.-The preparations of gold were recommended by Fallopius in the sixteenth century; they had been forgotten, however, until the attention of physicians was recalled to them by Dr. Chrestien of Montpellier, about the year 1810. They are used in some diseases instead of mercury, and have also been adminis. tered in scrofula. The following four preparations are those chiefly employed: the chloride of gold, the chloride of gold and soda, the oxide of gold, and the oxide of gold made by means of tin, otherwise called Cassius's purple. According to Dr. Chrestien, the chloride of gold is far more active than corrosive sublimate, but it does not affect the gums so much. The doses of these preparations are almost infinitesimal, so that eating gold by way of physic is not so expensive as might be expected, Thus, when the chloride of gold and soda is taken in the form of pill, from to of a grain is the quantity swal |