New remedies : with formulae for their preparation and administration / By Robley Dunglison.

  • Robley Dunglison
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: New remedies : with formulae for their preparation and administration / By Robley Dunglison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    754/814 (page 748)
    When examined by Reinsch, it was found to contain an odorous ethereal oil, which did not smell of musk; a colourless balsam, and two peculiar acids, (Sumbulamsaure and S um bulolsiiure; ) aromatic resin, bitter princi- ple, &c. According to Schnitzlein and A. Frickingcr,1 a soft resin oczes from the wood and concretes, which possesses the characteristic smell of the root in a high degree, and has a taste between that of musk and calamus. It is solu- ble in alcohol, and is in great part thrown down in a milky form by the addi- tion of water. Sumbul is said to have been used in dropsy and atrophy; but, of late, it has been brought forward in Germany as a gentle excitant of the nervous sys- tem, and through it of all the organic actions. Thielmann prescribed it in the nervous stadium of typhoid fever; and in chorea, delirium tremens? flatulence of the stomach as a consequence of tonic spasms, in anaesthesia of the nerves of the bladder, enuresis, ischuria renalis spastica, diarrhoea and cholera morbus; and he suggests that it may be found a valuable prophylactic and curative agent in cholera. He prescribed it also in a case of violent vomiting in the convalescent stage of typhus; in diabetes insipidus; and in tubercular phthisis; and it seemed to him to improve the condition of a patient in the last period of profuse suppuration from caries with hectic fever. In 1853, he informed Drs. Wood and Bache3 that he depended mainly upon it in the treatment of delirium tremens; having found it superior in its composing influence over that complaint even to opium. It has been prescribed, indeed, in the most heterogeneous cases; * and there is too much reason to believe, that effects have been assigned to it to which it is little or not at all entitled. It was given by Dupuis,5 of Mainz, in cardiedgia, colic, disordered digestion in pregnancy, and in convalescence; and Yon Kieter,6 of Kasan, prescribed it generally with ad- vantage in cholera typhus and in the later periods of cholera. A few years ago it was introduced into England by Dr. Granville, of London, with a title to his essay on it, which is sufficient to cast distrust on his testimony,— The Sumbul; a new Asiatic remedy of great power against nervous disorders, spasms of the stomach, cramp, hysterical affections, paralysis of the limbs and epilepsy; with an account of its physical, chemical and medicinal characters, and specific [?] property of checking • the progress of collapse-cholera, as first ascertained in Russia! In this, Dr. Granville gives a history of the article, and of its various applications to the treatment of disease.7 We do not find, says Dr. Ranking,8 that Dr. Granville's observations have been confirmed. Should there be anything in the medicine, it will doubtless soon be known. It has been given as an antispasmodic in epilepsy, by Dr. Todd,9 but the re- sults have not been published. It is prescribed in powder, in the dose of half a scruple and more, several times a day ; in infusion—half an ounce of the root to six ounces of water— —dose, a tablespoonful.—In decoction, in water or hock, half an ounce of the root to eight ounces of water or wine, boiled down to six ounces—dose, a ta- blespoonful ; and in infuso-decoctum—half an ounce of the root being infused 1 Dierbach, Die neuesten Entdeckungen in der Materia Medica, 3er Band, 2te Abth. S. 1156. 2 Meinhard, Schmidt's Jahr. lxx. 172, cited in Brit, and For. Med. Chir. Rev., Jan. 1852, p. 275. 3 Dispensatory of the United States of America, 10th edit. p. 1395. Pliilad. 1854. 4 Aschenbrenner, Ibid. S. 257. 5 Schmidt's Jahrbucher, Jahrgang 1849, S. 294. 6 Ibid. 1 A full notice of Dr. Granville's pamphlet is contained in Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal for Oct. 1850, p. 459. 8 The Half-yearly Abstract of the Medical Sciences, No. 12, July to December, 1850, Amer. edit. p. 184. Philad. 1851. 9 Cited from London Lancet, in Med. Examiner, July, 1850, p. 437.