Colonial North America: Countway Library of Medicine

298

Materia Medica

Stimulants

that is produces sweat and agreeable sleep and assirts the operation of the bark, he says it is more usefull than any other medicine, then he exhibited some after the hot fit commenced, and observed it never did harm though it might have sometimes done no good he thought it a verry good preparation with the bark, when the patient was costive he gave Ʒi [1 dram] Tinct. Sacra. and if the patient had taken a vomit he waited for some time. Professor Botance of London gave opium in intermittants with great advantage. I cannot say from my own observation that Linds practice was incorrect but I should not like to follow it. I have obseved that opium increases the pain in the head after the hot fit had subsided, this opinion of the impropriety of opium in the hot stage is by no means peculiar to me. Dr of Niagara gave anodoyne draughts he combined then with some neutral salts, and thought they mitigated the violence of a paroxysm of an intermittant, opium frequently does much good, the former diminishes the narcotic power of the latter, but not its antispasmodic powers, perhaps too it increases its sudorific effects. I learned