A dispensatory, or commentary on the phgarmacopoeias of Great Britain.

  • Robert Christison
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dispensatory, or commentary on the phgarmacopoeias of Great Britain. 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.

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    into the Materia Medica, correctly assumed it of the strength most in use at the time the Dublin Pharmacopoeia was published, that is about 3.3 per cent, or what is usually called Vauquelin's acid. The Edinburgh College adopts the same proportion, with a small allow- ance for unavoidable variations. The London College, which might also have followed the example of Dublin without inconvenience, has reduced the percentage to two parts only, Action and Uses.—Hydrocyanic acid has been admitted into medical practice chiefly as a calmative, anodyne and antispasmodic. It is well known to be a very powerful narcotic poison, the most powerful perhaps which modern chemistry has hitherto disclosed. It induces coma and convulsions, especially of the muscles of re- spiration, constituting phenomena not unlike those which charac- terize some varieties of the epileptic paroxysm. Death commonly ensues in the human subject within five minutes; but sometimes it is delayed for three-quarters of an hour; and on the other hand there can be no doubt from repeated observation on the lower ani- mals, that it might be induced by large doses, especially of the pure acid, in the course of a very few seconds. Death has been occasioned in man by a mixture containing scarcely one grain of the pure hydrocyanic acid. Congestion of the brain is commonly found after death, more rarely exhaustion of muscular irritability ; and in every instance of rapid death the poison may be found in the stomach for some days afterwards. For a poison so speedy in its operation scarcely any antidote can be practically available. The best however is the administration of carbonate of potash fol- lowed by the mixed sulphates of iron, to convert the poison into Prussian blue [Messrs Smith]. The proportions are 144 grains of carbonate of potash in two ounces of water, and a similar solution of a drachm of sulphate of protoxide of iron with two drachms of the same salt converted into sulphate of peroxide by sulphuric and nitric acid, as directed by the Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia for pre- paring Ferrugo. Fifty-two minims of each solution will convert into Prussian blue all the acid contained in 100 minims of the Edinburgh acid. The inhalation of ammonia or diluted chlorine combined with cold affusion of the head and chest, has seemed the only other efficacious treatment. The physiological effects of medicinal doses have not hitherto been well determined, and its therapeutic applications would re- quire more exact inquiry than any yet instituted. Single* doses cause a peculiar irritation in the throat, sometimes a sense of stiff- ness or fulness of the tongue, occasionally nausea; and when long continued, salivation has been sometimes apparently produced. It has been extensively used in a great variety of diseases usually be- nefited by calmatives and antispasmodics; and in these diseases it has been commonly considered to reduce the force of the circula- tion, to allay nervous irritability, to soothe pain, to subdue spasm, and at the same time to stimulate the digestive functions and gently
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