Colonial North America: Countway Library of Medicine

138

Materia Medica

Tonics

menstrua so that they reside in a resin. Dr Percival thought it corrected the pubescency of bile, he took a ℈i [1 scruple] which had no effect on his pulse, he recommends it in yellow fever but I hope no Physician will trust the cure to this medicine; but it is only in the second stage it can be usefull, he used it also in vomiting, Cholera Infantium &c. Dr Percival says it is most agreeable when combined with Cort. Aurant. bit. Dr Cullen says it is little used in Britain and possesses no peculiar power in correcting pubescency, he says he has used it in Cholera Morbus without any previous purging with the happiest effects. Dr G Brown says he does not think it entitled to the encomium it has received. In chlorosis it has been used by Dr Johnson in large doses with the happiest effects Dr Monroe and Haygarth found it usefull in billious fevers. In dispepsia it is one of the most powerfull and and agreeable bitters we know. I prefer the root in substance, the wartery infusion or decoction should never be used, except it be given in a days time, for the mucilage it contains will ferment and it will not be fit for use. I have used the powder with the rust of Iron this is a most powerfull tonic the dose should be regulated

143

Diaphoretics

half a century ago it has been emphatically called by Richter a rheumatism or catarrh of the intestines, and he used a preparation of Dovers powders. I think we have purged too much in this disease, one of the use of Purgatives being to increase secretions of mucus already too copiously effused from the follicles of the intestines. I have tried with the greatest advantage in combination of

Rx Ipecac ℈ i [1 scruple] Opium grs V [5 grains]

M. and made into ten pills of which give one every two hours. When the irritation has been verry great I administer anodoyne enemeta composed of such a portion of the ingredients as to 4 or 5 tablespoonfull of Laud with starch in the 24 hours.

Cholera Morbus & Infantum. I have used Diaphoretics with great advantage. In cholera Infantum it may

184

Materia Medica

Tonics

for the most part from the same cause as remitting or intermitting fevers, Dr Cullen thought it improper in the first stage but this opinion was not drawn so much from experience as from his theory of the cause of the disease which he supposed to be a spasm of the colon, this I have before controverted and said it depended on an inflamation or febrile action in the intestinal membrane of the lower intestines. Dr Cullen thought when dysentary puts on the tertian type bark is necessary, and it frequently assumes an intermittant type; and this circumstance induced physicians to use the bark in this disease. Dr Morton used the bark and opium combined in dysentary and he deserves credit for using opium first in this disease he gave it in the intermission of the parexia. Cleghorn observed the simularity between tertian and dysentary and hence employed the bark in the latter, some have given it merely to prevent mortification, in the year 1745, 6 and 8 in, Philadelphia, Dysentary expressed the form of tertian fevers, and I think it much more connected with fever than at present. Cholera Morbus verry often requires bleeding, but sometimes yields to diluents and opium, it is sometimes of

414

Materia Medica

Stimulants

without depending on laudanum. I have kept of [off] paroxysm of epilipsy by this about two hours before the expected paroxysm. I have apply'd synapisms to the neck and found them better than blisters, in Scarlatina Anguinosa, they produce a separation of the gangrenous parts, they have been supposed to have some effect on the genital organs, restoring the venerial power, there are some cases of deafness in which these cataplasms to the ancles have done some good, they were cases of arthritic kinds and are sometimes relieved by cupping &c. But synapisms are of greater use in cholera Morbus we generally give laudanum with safety, but lately where the disease has been more violent I have apply'd synapisms and give opium in other forms, since adopting this practice I have never lost an adult patient in this disease. In vertigo I have used them with great advantage, and have experienced their good effects in my own person for I have frequently kept off the vertigo by this means, they are however often however precarious remidies especially when apply'd to parts which are affected with pain. I one saw a case of a violent pain in the kidneys which by the application of these to the seat of the disease was transplanted to the bladder, it was however entirely removed by applying them to the ancles, this may be said of blisters. In Arthritic Stranguary blisters are verry serviceable, but when stranguary is induced