Colonial North America: Countway Library of Medicine

598

Materia Medica

Emmenagogues

has been employ’d to produce abortion from which circumstance in some countries it is forbidden to be sold. Some mischief is done in this City by employing it for the above purposes. About 5 years ago I was called to visit the wife of a respectable man who was in the second stage of Phthisis Pulmonalis, she was not old, and still handsome, she was a few months under my care and informed me she imparted her illness to an iniquitous mode of proceeding, she always suffered much in parturition and to escape the sufferings in future, she had permitted herself to be persuaded by an old woman to take the savin by which means she had induced three successive abortions, she took it in large doses ℥fs [½ ounce] of the leaves made into a strong tea and said that it acted violently. the powder of the dry’d leaves of savin is a good escharotic, and it is a good application to warts especially venerial ones. the following is the position of the ointment

Rx Pulv. Fol. Sabina } Sub Acetate of Copper } aa Ʒi [1 dram of each]

Intimately mixed and rubbed on the part. The medium dose of the Sabina is from 20 to 30 grs [grains] of the dry’d leaves, commencing with 15 grs [grains] & increasing to Ʒi [1 dram] three times a day, when purging supervenes I combine a small quantity of opium and lessen the dose of sabina. The leaves of the Red Cedar have been used it is said with all the benifit of this medicine.