On the inhalation of cinchonia, and its salts / by S.W. Mitchell.

  • Silas Weir Mitchell
Date:
[1858?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the inhalation of cinchonia, and its salts / by S.W. Mitchell. 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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    Read before the Biological Department of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Dec. 1868. On the Inhalation of Cinchonia, and its salts. By S. W. MITCHELL, M. D. There can be very little doubt that at some future time we shall possess the means of giving to patients many potent remedies in the form of inhala- tion, rather than in the usual way. This is at least among the hopes of the therapeutist of the present day. Absorption of medicinal substances by the intestii al mucous surface is but too often uncertain, while the passage to the blood through the lungs seems to be always an open tracl^, when the agent in- haled is in a state of vapor. IIow desirable it would be to possess the means of inhaling quinine in the congestive fevers of our malarious districts, we can very well conceive. Guided by these ideas, I have sought industriously for Borne means of attaining this result, and although I have failed, as I shall here show, in evolving any very marked practical benefit from these researches, I have met with certain facts of such interest that 1 desire to put them on record as indicating a novel direction for medical thought and action. At one time, the analogy in chemical composition, between certain of the newly formed ethers and quinia itself, seemed to point out these as fit sub- jects for therapeutic use and trial. The difficulty of procuring them, obliged me, however, to relinquish effort in this direction, and 1 turned from them to exam- ine anew the alkaloids derived from cinchona bark. While thus engaged, one of my friends, now Dr. Bill, of the army, pointed out to me in Fresenius's Che- mistry, his account of cinchonia, which he describes as volatile at high tem- peratures. Struck with this, I searched carefully for any account of its inhalation, but as yet have been unable to find in the books on Cinchona any description of inhalation, as a mode of using the alkaloid in question. The last complete work on quinia, by M. Briquet, enumerates many methods of employing the alkaloids and bark, but neither among the means in use, or out of use, is this one alluded to. Occasionally, in disease of the lungs or throat, inhalation of pulverized cinchona bark has been resorted to, and M. Briquet relates,— Traite Therapeutique du Quinquina et de ses preparations, p. 118,—that those who work in the storehouses of cinchona bark are sometimes thus cured of malarious fevers. This could only occur through accidental ingestion, and inhalation of the floating particles of bark. Cinchonia and its salts are the only alkaloids which appear to be volatile by heat. After many experiments, I have finally resorted to the following very simple method of inhaling them:—About forty grains of pure cinchonia, being mixed up with sand, are placed in a capsule, and heated by a spirit- lamp. The sand is useful in diffusing the heat, and preventing too rapid a destruction of the alkaloid. A heat of about 300° melts the particles of cin- chonia into a brown fluid, and from this, if the evaporation be carefully ma- naged, the volatilized alkaloid escapes in the form of a gray vapor. When a microscope glass is held over the capsule, and the heat is too ele- vated, the cinchonia decomposes, and a dark red gummy-matter, xyth the odor of burned benzoin, adheres to the glass. A rather lower temperature drives off the cinchonia in a gray vapor, which may be made to redeposit the pure alkaloid upon the interior of a funnel held over it, or upon a microscope slide. The alkaloid thus obtained is in branching needles. ^ v ♦!, On a number of occasions, I inhaled the vapors of cinchonia, often breatn- ing them for ten or twenty minutes, without much inconvenience, wuen care was taken to regulate the supply of heat. The brown or reddish volat. e sub- stance which is given off when the heat used is too great, so irritates tne throat as to cause nausea, and oblige the patient to cease inhaling. When carefullv inhaled, a part of the alkaloid is deposited on the throat and in the mouth, where its sub-bitter taste is soon perceived, lo guam against error, which might arise from swallowing these portions of the ^iKa- loid, I refrained from swallowing whilst inhaling, and frequently rinsed tne throat with water. , , ,v • „u„„;o +Vina Upon four occasions, I noted the symptoms caused by the cinchonia tnus ^.^^y-HEDIcTTD^