Transactions of the Royal Medico-Botanical Society of London / edited by W. H. Judd.

Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Transactions of the Royal Medico-Botanical Society of London / edited by W. H. Judd. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    138/260 (page 130)
    , September ] st and ’2nd. The extract was repeated, and he rested both nights as well as on the 31st. Case III, August 2bth. IVTai’y . A case of cough, with haBnioptysis, in which I prescribed Extr. conii gr. iv (Battley’s preparation.) 2Qth. The patient stated she had not benefitted by the medicine, and was much the same. 2^th. The extract repeated last evening, and the patient coughed all night. Extr. conii gr. iv (Squire’s preparation.) 2Qth. She had a much better night: the cough was far less trou- blesome. Rep. extr. conii. 2Qth. The medicine caused rest: the cough was quiet. Having mentioned a sufficient number of these trials to shew the vast difference in amelioration of symptoms experienced by patients taking equal doses of the two extracts, I shall next lay before the Society the results of several experiments on animals, made in the hope of ascertaining correctly the relative strength and efficacy of the preparations. Improvement in our art, and obtaining more certain results when these drugs are administered, being my inducement for this undertaking, I thought it best to begin by administering small doses, noticing carefully their effects, and increasing gradatim their quantity until death resulted from their acting as poisons. 1 was inclined the more strenuously to follow this plan of proceeding from Professor Christison’s remark, in his very excellent paper, in which he says, “ I wish I could have added to these observa- tions on the poisonous effects of Conia and Hemlock, some ac- count of their physiological properties in small doses, etc.” I conceived that by giving an equal weight of each extract to the same individual or animal on different days, that a fair com- parative view of their effects was most likely to be obtained ;