jalap, gamboge, and other drastic purgatives which very few medical practitioners would venture to give to delicate children or infants. To say the best of them they are kill or cure medicines, and as the public are only informed of their beneficial effects, so it is impossible they can form any estimate of their real merit. From their drastic qualities it must appear evident, in the hands of ignorance they must often be productive of much mischief, particularly in ricketty or weakly children, or when they happen to meet with much acidity in the stomach and bowels, with which all children are more or less affected.

A popular writer whose works* we have often quoted and read with much pleasure, observes, "most of the nostrums advertised as remedies for "worms are composed of mercury; those made << up in the form of lozenges with sugar, and in gingerbread nuts, by becoming acescent from, being kept long or in a damp place, so increase the acrimony of the mercury as to render "them a powerful poison."

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This Author might have added, that the mercury not being well blended or unequally divided through the quantity that is made at one time, one nut or lozenge may contain a poisonous dose, while others may contain little or no mer cury. To one, or perhaps to both of these circumstances may be attributed the death of the child, at Hull, alluded to by Dr. Keighley, the particulars of which has been very properly published by her father with the verdict of the coroner's inquest, viz. "poisoned by worm lozenges;" we regret much that we cannot abridge the case so as to bring the substance within the limits of our work, we must

* Reece's Domestic Medical Guide.

therefore refer our readers to the original publica tion, the title of which we have copied.

We return our thanks to Mr. B. for the cases of Mr. Harris and the young person who also died in the same house, whose name we beg he will favor us with, that we may make the necessary inquiries. These, with Mr. S.'s account of the former occupation of Dr. Gardner. His summons before the College of Physicians, &c. &c. belong to our next, this number being devoted to the examination of nostrums only.

DR. JAMES'S FEVER POWDER,

The only apparent difference between this nostrum and the pulvis antimonialis of the London pharmacopoeia, consists in its being less potent, and of course requires a larger dose to produce the same effects. This medicine which was a few months since sold at 2s. 3d. per packet, con-, taining only forty grains, has been advanced by Mr. Newberry, the present proprietor, to 2s. 6d. although one would suppose from the composition they cannot cost the proprietor two-pence.

Mr. Perrin, chemist, of Southampton-street, states, that he was the original and only person who ever prepared them for the late Dr. James, from the time he first invented them (upwards of four years before he obtained the King's patent, and until fourteen months after his death) retails them at. is. 6d. a packet, on which he will allow a discount of 25 per cent. and we can venture to say, that his profits, at that rate, are very considerable. A

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packet containing the same quantity of the pulvis antimonialis may be put up for three-halfpence, including the directions. We appeal to our readers, whether, therefore, Mr. Newberry had any reason to advance the price from 2s. 3d. to 2s. 6d. it been prepared from gold, instead of antimony, it could not have been sold at a dearer rate. We do not on comparison, as well as experience find, that there is any difference between Mr. Perrin's and Mr. Newbery's preparations.

A letter sometime since appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine, the intent of which was to prove the superiority of James's powder over the pulvis antimonialis of the London Pharmacopoeia; the writer of these comments, can say from many and repeated trials, he has uniformly found the pulvis antimonialis more certain in its operation than James's powder, as well as more efficacious in inflammatory affections; and if the Author know himself, he may venture to affirm, that he should be the last person in the world that would make false assertions for the purpose of infringing on the rights of his fellow subjects; what he states is the result of the most impartial and repeated experiments, one of which we will relate :

An elderly medical doctor, who held the appointment of physician to a provincial infirmary, was often in the habit of prescribing for the patients the true James's powders, as well as taking it himself. Being once out of the article, and not being able to get any in that city, I was under the necessity of substituting the pulvis antimonialis for James's powder, of which I did not apprise him. He took them in the usual way, and with the same satisfaction. After taking two boxes, I had some conversation with him relative to the difference be

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tween the two preparations, when he declared, that he never could take the pulvis antimonialis without producing a nausea at the stomach, which James's. powders never did. The funds of the charity having experienced a considerable reduction, I prevailed on him to prescribe the pulvis antimonialis, and after witnessing its effects for some time, although before much prejudiced against it, he agreed to take it himself in proportionate doses, and after persisting in its use for some time, he declared it never disappointed him in its diaphoretic effects, which he could not say of James's powders.

Antimonial preparations are active remedies, and by promoting perspiration and by diminishing the vis vitæ under proper management, are very valuable medicines in fevers strictly inflammatory, but even in such cases, there may be symptoms which may render its exhibition highly improper, such as irritability of stomach, vomitting, violent purgings, and some predisposition in the system to disease of debility, as dropsy, &c. Fever may be considered in domestic medicine, a generic term, comprehending a great variety, arising from very different causes, and attended with opposite states of the system. Hence, we meet with fevers accompanied with increased vigour and action in the system, as the synocha of Dr. Cullen, when medicines calculated to reduce the powers of the system, as James's or the antimonial powders are very proper. Again, we meet with fevers of a doubtful nature, commencing with symptoms of too violent an action but suddenly assuming an opposite character, as the synochus, when the employment of James's or the antimonial preparations, must from their debilitating effects endanger the life of the patient. Again, there is a fever pro

duced by the introduction of putrid effluvia into the system, termed typhus or putrid fever, which often require the most powerful tonic medicine to support the powers of the system, and preserve life, and in which the use of James's or antimonial powder would tend to accelerate the dissolution of the patient, and under certain circumstances, such as profuse perspirations and diarrhoea; its fatal effects would be as instantaneous as arsenic. This nostrum being therefore advertised as a remedy for fevers, it is to be supposed, that by the ignorant it is indiscriminately employed in all cases.

Dr. Monro observes, "that he has known "several instances where antimonial prepara"tions have been given in putrid ulcerated sore throats, and in low fevers; and it has "brought on such a purging as to hurry the pa"tients to their graves in a short time." This renowned Author adds, "that people ought to give "such active medicines with great caution in low or putrid fevers, or when the strength is already "much exhausted."

Neither do we think it right, that in any fever, the sole employment of James's powders should be depended on. In some cases bleeding, blistering, aperient medicines, and the warm bath may be also necessary. In others, the saline mixture, and again, in others the Peruvian bark is necessary to accompany its use.

As it is generally imagined that the pulvis antimonialis and James's powders are of the same strength, we think proper to observe, that four grains of the former are equal to about six of the latter. There is now prepared by chymists a pulvis antimonialis mitior, which approaches near to Dr. James's powder, and is prescribed in the same doses.