Volume 1

Medical botany; or, illustrations and descriptions of the medicinal plants of the London, Edinburgh, and Dublin pharmacopoeias : Comprising a poular and scientific account of poisonous vegetables indigenous to Great Britain / By John Stephenson and James Morss Churchill.

  • John Stephenson
Date:
MDCCCXXXIV-MDCCCXXXVI [1834-1836]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical botany; or, illustrations and descriptions of the medicinal plants of the London, Edinburgh, and Dublin pharmacopoeias : Comprising a poular and scientific account of poisonous vegetables indigenous to Great Britain / By John Stephenson and James Morss Churchill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    proportion. Dr. Paris has repeated some of Dr. Nimmo’s ex- periments, and discovered an active principle analogous to etatin ; to which he has appropriated the name tiglin; it does not appear to possess any of the characters of a salifiable basis. To obtain the oil, Dr. Nimmo recommends the following plan : After digesting the braised seeds a sufficient time, the whole should he thrown in a filter, closely covered during the process of filtration, and the residuum afterwards washed with a little ether. By this process about two drachms of the oil may be obtained from 300 grains of the seeds. Of the oil thus obtained, an alcoholic solution may be prepared, in the proportion of eight drops of the oil to an ounce of alcohol, as one of the best media for exhibiting it; and as it allows the dose to he readily proportioned, according to the circumstances of the case.” Dr. Nimmo’s prescription. R Solut. Alcohol. Crotonis Tiglii 5!? Syrup. Simplicis. Mucil. G. Acacim aa ^ij Aquae Distillate Jf] Fiat haustus. After swallowing a little milk, take the draught quickly, and wash it down with the same diluent. Adulterations.—The following is Dr. Nimmo’s method, to detect adulterations of the oil:— “Let a very light phial be counterpoised in an accurate balance ; pour into it 50 grains of the suspected oil, add alcohol, (which has been pre- viously digested upon olive oil,*) agitate them well, pour off the solution, and add more alcohol as before, until the dissolved portion is diffused in such a proportion of alcohol, that each half drachm measure shall contain equal to one dose of the oil of tiglium, for an adult. By afterwards placing the phial near a fire, to evaporate what remains of the alcohol in the bottle, if the residuum be to that which has been abstracted by the alcohol as 55 to 45, the oil is genuine. If olive, or any other oil, little soluble in alcohol, has been employed as the adulterating agent, it is evident that the residuum would be in larger proportion ; hut should castor oil have been employed for that purpose, the proportion of the residuum will be smaller even than in the genuine medicine.” Medical Properties.—Every part of the plant is endowed with medical virtues, and the pulverized root, acting as a drastic purgative, is considered at Amboyna and Batavia to be a specific for dropsy: while the wood (lignum pavance) administered in small doses, exerts diuretic, gentle emetic, and powerful dia- phoretic effects. By the Japanese, the leaves, dried and pow- * The object of this preliminary step is to saturate the alcohol with a fixed oil, that it may not dissolve any portion of that in the tiglium, and thus confuse the resu 8. ie quantity ot fixed oil, which alcohol is capable of dissolving is ex- reme y sma , and will not, in the least degree, injure the alcoholic solution for sub- sequent medicinal use.