Remarks on the efficacy of matico, as a styptic and astringent. With additional cases, mode of exhibition, &c / [Thomas Jeffreys].

  • Jeffreys, Thomas, 1774?-1852.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the efficacy of matico, as a styptic and astringent. With additional cases, mode of exhibition, &c / [Thomas Jeffreys]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    hours. The first half-pint “ was of some service,” and in the second quan¬ tity taken, there was so much improvement that I ceased to attend daily, and on my inquiring- of her as to which medicine she felt inclined to attri¬ bute the relief, she said, ‘ to the second.’ u In three or four cases of vaginal leucorrhcea, it has proved of service ; as an injection, I have tried it in leech-bites with undoubted utility. (( I tried, the other day, the leaf pulverized and mixed up with lard, as a substitute for the ung. gallarum, in haemorrhoids. Although there was not any addition of opium, which the last London Pharmacopeia has ordered for the present gall ointment, yet it corrugated the hemorrhoids, and, along with the proportion of opium, it would have no doubt been found a beneficial application. I have not yet tested its powers in any case of hemorrhage from the cancerated uterus, though I am inclined to think that its topical application, either by steeping cotton-wool or lint with the tinc¬ ture, or by an ointment made with it, and ceratum cetacei, (to which opium, henbane, or conium, might be usefully added), wrould be serviceable. I am in the habit of using the acetate of lead, and the ext. conii or ext. hyoscy., for this haemorrhage, but I propose to try the above-suggested ointment. My colleague, Dr. Roche, tried the Infusion, after venesection, in a case of haemoptysis in a severe form, which occurred in a young man of thirty-three. After the third dose of one ounce of the Infusion, the haemorrhage very much diminished, and finally subsided, on his continuing the remedy. This case afterwards died of tubercular phthisis. (t Dr. R. has allowed me to report the above to you, and also mentioned to me, that, in his practice, the Tincture had c failed,’ in a case of Menor¬ rhagia, and the Infusion in a case of Dysentery. I presume there may have been too inflammatory a state of the mucous surface and glands of the large intestines in the latter, for the styptic leaf to restrain beneficially; and I agree with the opinion given by our associate Dr. Carson, at the Pathologi¬ cal Society, the other evening, viz.:—‘ That it is desirable to keep in mind, that the cases relieved by the Plant have been and will be those of passive rather than active haemorrhage.’* This remark, which I should call the hey to the right use of the Matico, will also, of course, equally correspond to those cases of various discharges, &c., in which an active or a passive con¬ dition of the capillary circulation is the proximate cause. The stimulant character of the Plant would lead us to this conclusion, d priori, though now it seems to have been arrived at as the direct result of experiments, successful, or the contrary, according to the fact of the diseases ranging themselves under the active or the passive forms. I have continued to try it at the Lying-in Hospital, in some cases, with decided benefit to the complaints, the nature of which, as leucorrhma, blenorrhagia, &c., corre- * [For this reason, perfectly well understood by medical men, it is of importance that the remedies should be directed under the guidance of a medical practitioner; for although the bleeding may be suppressed by the Plant, it may be necessary to substitute some other evacuation to remove the cause of the haemorrhage.]—T. J.