Therapeutics and materia medica: a systematic treatise on the action and uses of medicinal agents, including their description and history (Volume 1).
- Alfred Stillé
- Date:
- 1864
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Therapeutics and materia medica: a systematic treatise on the action and uses of medicinal agents, including their description and history (Volume 1). Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
123/816
![I.] AMYGDALA AMARA. 1'** Externally, it may be applied as a sedative and emollient lotion in all cases of cutaneous irritation. The fixed oil of almonds is a singularly bland and agreeable oil, and very useful as a demulcent. It was particularly recommended by Sydenham in the cough of phthisis, and may be used in all irritations of the respiratory passages. It is prescribed in emulsion. 2. Bitter Almonds.—These almonds, which are somewhat bitter to the taste, owe their peculiarities to a proximate principle called amygdalin. When the emulsin, which they also contain, is mixed with water, it acts as a ferment upon the amygdalin, converting it into hydrocyanic acid and volatile oil of bitter almonds. The presence of water is essential to these changes, for without it a perfectly bland oil, like that from sweet almonds, can be obtained from the bitter variety by pressure or by heat. The oil of bitter almonds (Oleum Amygdala Amarje) is obtained by distilling with water almonds from which the fixed oil has been removed by expression. Its active properties depend mainly upon the hydrocyanic acid which it contains, and it forms a convenient mode of administering that agent. It may be prescribed in the dose of a quarter of a drop and from that to a drop and a half in an emulsion. Action of Bitter Almonds.—As already stated, bitter almonds become poisonous by reaction with the water of the animal fluids; and many instances are recorded of alarming symptoms, and some of death itself having been produced by them in man. According to the experi- ments of Wepfer a drachm of the pulp is sufficient to kill a pigeon or a kitten; Hiller gave three ounces of bitter almonds to a cat without destroying it, although the animal had convulsions, foamed at the mouth, &c.; Viborg gave a horse as much as three-quarters of a pound of bitter almonds, the pulse became small, and the animal appeared dull, but was not otherwise affected.1 According to Orfila twenty bitter almonds, each cut into three pieces, will kill a dog in six hours, if the gullet is' tied.2 In man, symptoms of poisoning are also produced by these nuts. Orfila relates such a case concerning two children. Within a quarter of an hour pallor and collapse of the features, dilated pupils, sighing respiration, somnolence and muscular relaxation, indicated the nature of the accident. In larger quantities their poisonous effect may be very sudden. A case is reported by Kennedy of a man who fell down dead after eating a large quantity of bitter almonds; there was froth- ing at the nose and mouth, and the eyes continued fixed and glisten- ing.3 In many instances the bitter almond gives rise to annoying, but less serious, symptoms, and particularly to a copious eruption upon the skin resembling urticaria; but as the sweet almond sometimes has a similar effect, it must be attributed to personal peculiarities, rather than to the poisonous action of the nut. The volatile oil of bitter almonds is one of the most powerful of poisons. According to Mr. Taylor, one hundred parts of the oil con- • Wibmeb, Wirkung, &c, i. 155. 2 Toxicologie, 5eme ed., ii. 423. * Wibmeb, from Lond. Med. and Phys. Journ., Feb. 1827.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21156797_0123.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
