The dispensatory of the United States of America / by George B. Wood and Franklin Bache.

Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The dispensatory of the United States of America / by George B. Wood and Franklin Bache. 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.)

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    condition which succeeds concussion of the brain from falls, blows, &c; and from this circumstance has received the title of panacea lapsorum. It has also been recommended in chronic catarrh of the old, intermittent fever and its sequela?, dysentery, diarrhoea, nephritis, gout, rheumatism, passive hemorrhages, dropsy, chlorosis, amenorrhcea, and various other complaints, in most of which it seems to have been empirically prescribed. It is peculiarly useful in diseases attended with a debilitated or typhoid state of the system. Dr. T. C. Miller has found it a very valuable remedy in enteric or typhoid fever. (Penins. Med. Journ., Sept. 1859, p. 382.) The powdered flowers and leaves are employed as a sternutatory; and the inhabitants of Savoy and the Vosges are said to substitute them for tobacco. They are best given in substance or infusion. The dose of the powder is from five to twenty grains frequently repeated. The infusion may be prepared by digesting an ounce in a pint of water, of which from half a fluidounce to a fluid- ounce may be given every two or three hours. It should always be strained through linen, in order to separate the fine fibres, which might otherwise irritate the throat. The poisonous properties of the plant are said to be best counteracted by the free use of vinegar or other dilute vegetable acid; but the stomach should be first thoroughly emptied. A tincture prepared from the flowers has come into use in this country as a domestic remedy in sprains, bruises, &c, and is now among the U. S. officinals. It is employed externally. Off. Prep, of the Flowers. Extractum Arnica? Alcoholicum, U.S.; Tinctura Arnicae, U. S. Off. Prep, of the Root. Tinctura Arnica?, Br. W. ARSENICUM. U.S. Arsenic. Arsenic, Fr.; Arsenik, Germ.; Arsenico, Ital., Span. This metal was introduced into the U. S. and Dublin Pharmacopoeias of 1850, for the purpose of being used to form the iodide of arsenic, and the solution of iodide of arsenic and mercury, two new officinals of those works. It has been re- tained in the Materia Medica of the U. S. Pharmacopoeia, but was rejected by the compilers of the British.' The Dublin College gave the following formula. Take of White Oxide of Arsenic of Commerce two drachms [Dub. weight]. Place the Oxide at the sealed end of a hard German glass tube, of about half an inch in diameter and eighteen inches long, and, having covered it with about eight inches of dry and coarsely pulverized charcoal, and raised the portion of the tube containing the charcoal to a red heat, let a few ignited coals be placed beneath the Oxide, so as to effect its slow sublimation. When this has been accomplished, the metallic arsenic will be found attached to the interior of the tube at its distant or cool extremity. In conducting this process, the furnace used in the performance of an organic analysis should be employed, and the fuel should be ignited charcoal. It will be proper also to connect the open extremity of the tube with a flue, for the purpose of preventing the possible escape into the apartment of arsenical vapours; and, with the view of keeping it from being plugged by the metal, to introduce occa- sionally into it, as the sublimation proceeds, an iron wire through a cork, fixed (but not air-tight) in its open extremity. In the above process, the white oxide (arsenious acid) is reduced by the agency of ignited charcoal, which attracts the oxygen of the acid, and revives the metal. On the large scale, metallic arsenic is generally obtained by heating arsenical pyrites (FeAs,FeS3) in earthen tubes; when the metal sublimes, and two eqs. of protosulphuret of iron are left.