Page images
PDF
EPUB

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. Magendie 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 Magendie, 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 Magendie 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 Linnean name of the hop (humulus lupulus). Some writers assert that it is narcotic; but others, among whom is Magendie, deny this. Croton Oil.-What Horace says of words, in that wellknown passage—

Multa renascentur quæ jam cecidere, cadentque
Quæ nunc sunt in honore vocabula, &c.

may be applied to medicines. Croton oil, for example, which Magendie 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 Magendie 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. Magendie calls it thridace from Ogida, 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 administered 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 too of a grain is the quantity swallowed daily. When the same medicine is mixed with fat and rubbed in, from to of a grain may be considered an average daily dose.

The salts of platinum are used in the same manner.

Grenadine is a neutral substance (i. e. neither acid nor alkaline,) extracted from the bark of the pomegranate root. It does not appear to have been tried as yet; but the bark itself is a celebrated remedy against tape-worm. The bark or peel of the fruit is equally efficacious. Magendie tells us, that, the day before the remedy is administered, the patient is to take an ounce and a half, or two ounces, of castor-oil mixed with equal parts of syrup of lemons. Two ounces of the bark of the root are to be boiled in two pints of water till they are reduced to one, and then strained. The decoction is to be divided into three equal parts, to be taken with the interval of half or threequarters of an hour between them. The patient is kept on low diet till the medicine has been administered, and the tape-worm is generally discharged an hour or so after the third dose.

The word grenadine is derived from grenadier, the French name for the pomegranate-tree.

Ethereal Tincture of Fern.-This remedy has been used with great success against tape-worm. The root of the fern itself was the specific for the disclosure of which

VOL. II.

U

Madame Noufer received a reward. She followed it up, however, with a brisk purge of calomel, scammony, and gamboge.

A better remedy, probably, than either fern or pomegranate bark is the oil of turpentine; an ounce of this seldom fails in expelling the tape-worm.

Phosphorus.-This highly dangerous remedy is far from a new one, having been used as long since as the year 1748, and at intervals up to the present time. The first case in which it was administered is one narrated by Dr. Mentz in a treatise published in 1751. A malignant petechial fever had been followed by an obstinate diarrhea, great anxiety about the præcordia, general prostration of strength, and delirium. Two grains of phosphorus were administered in a bolus of theriaca.* They immediately produced repose, sleep, and easy perspiration. In the evening and the next morning the medicine was repeated, with three grains in each dose. The perspiration became abundant and had a sulphureous smell. Every function was soon re-established, and the disease ceased.

Now for the other side of the picture. Alphonso Leroy, in the first volume of the Mémoires de la Société Medicale d'Emulation, narrates an experiment which he made upon himself, and from which he narrowly escaped. Having seen that the German physicians gave phosphorus in doses of from six to twelve grains a day, mixed with

Theriaca is the treacle of old pharmacy; not the dregs left in refining sugar, but a compound of honey, opium, and aromatics. The Theriaca Andromachi, for instance, was called Venice treacle. This meaning of the word treacle is more ancient than the present

one.

« PreviousContinue »