Modern domestic medicine : a popular treatise, describing the symptoms, causes, distinction, and correct treatment of the diseases incident to the human frame, embracing the modern improvements in medicine, to which are added, a domestic materia medica, a copious collection of approved prescriptions, &c. &c, The whole intended as a comprehensive medical guide for the use of clergymen, heads of families, emigrants etc. / by Thomas J. Graham.

  • Thomas John Graham
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Modern domestic medicine : a popular treatise, describing the symptoms, causes, distinction, and correct treatment of the diseases incident to the human frame, embracing the modern improvements in medicine, to which are added, a domestic materia medica, a copious collection of approved prescriptions, &c. &c, The whole intended as a comprehensive medical guide for the use of clergymen, heads of families, emigrants etc. / by Thomas J. Graham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    111/828 (page 95)
    to the merchants of Esne, about one pound sterling per camel load (from 400 to 500 weight.) Senna is a purgative very frequently employed, having a considerable degree of activity, without being liable to be harsh in its operation. The best form of administering it is that of watery infusion, two drachms being infused in four or five ounces of tepid water, to which three or four drachms of compound tincture of cardamoms should be added to prevent griping. Sugar or manna covers its taste, and is a suitable addition when it is given to children. The dose of the above infusion is from one to three or four ounces. Senna may be advantageously given in combination with any of the purgative neutral salts, as Epsom salt, Glauber’s salt, or soluble tartar. Two or three drachms of Epsom salt, an ounce and a half of infusion of senna, and a drachm of tinc- ture of senna, form the common black draught in so general use among apothecaries. The tincture of senna of the shops is similar in composition to the famous Daffy's Elixir; and, when good, is very little inferior to it. SERPENTARIA. This (the Aristolochia Serpentaria) is a plant usually rising eight or ten inches in height, a native of Virginia and Carolina, having a slender, flexuous stem. It has an aromatic smell, and a warm, bitter, pungent taste. It was probably first used in America as a remedy against the bites of serpents, whence its name. It is a warm cordial aromatic tonic, and acts as a diaphoretic. It has been much employed as a cordial medicine to support the powers of life, and promote a free perspiration in low and putrid fevers. It is a very appropriate and useful medicine in the advanced stages of malignant fevers, when the powers of life are greatly reduced, and yet the skin is hot and dry; hence it is of excel- lent use in confluent small-pox, especially when there is a receding of the eruption. When joined with bark it often proves of great service, since it makes the bark more cordial, and to sit easier on the stomach. Agues yield sooner to the bark mixed with serpentaria than without it, and it forms properly one of the ingredients in »the compound tincture of bark*. * “ I have given it in cases of protracted intermittents, especially when these have been combined with cough ; and it has removed the disease after quinine and arsenic had failed .—Thomson's Materia Medica,vol. i. ]). 193.