A handbook of local therapeutics / edited by Harrison Allen.

Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A handbook of local therapeutics / edited by Harrison Allen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    139/554 (page 127)
    * BELLADONNA. 127 painted on the previously dried surface once a day, and followed by the use of an astringent powder. The dried and powdered extract of belladonna may be employed as a dusting powder, and is particularly useful in Eczema of the groins, thighs, scrotum, anus, and neighboring parts, especially when occurring in the summer season and accompanied by excessive sweating. It should be carefully mixed with a dessicant powder, as oxide of zinc, subnitrate of bismuth, starch, or fuller's earth. The proportion should be one to two drachms to the ounce of the excipient. The extract of belladonna may be employed alone. (The official ointment is 48 grains to the ounce, but in referring to English works it is well to remember that the British preparation is nearly twice as strong.) It is found useful as a dressing in painful ulcers, and also in other painful conditions of the skin, as in Eczema of the Anus. It has a certain value also in Pruritus Ani. The constitutional effects should be guarded against. Atropine is employed for the same purposes as belladonna. Its external employment is rare ; usually it may be substituted by belladonna. Diseases of the Ear, Nose, and Throat.—Solutions of atropine, in three to five grains to the ounce, are of value in Rheumatic Otal- gia. One or two drops may be instilled at a time. Although its use is not contra-indicated by an opening in the tympanic membrane, it is necessary to bear in mind the ease by which the medicine may pass down the Eustachian tube to the pharynx. E. D. Williams recommended the atropine treatment as one of the best at our command. Keene recom- mends atropine as a remedy for Tinnitus. The liquor atropii diluted with an equal quantity of water may be injected by the Eustachian catheter. T. F, Rumbold {Trans. Amer. Rhinol. Ass^n, 1886) uses a strength of five grains to the ounce in the local treatment of Hay Fever. A few drops are directed to be placed on a pledget of cotton and in- serted in the nostril. Mixed with cocoa butter, atropine, one-twentieth of a grain, or one-quarter of a grain of the alcoholic extract of bella- donna, may be exhibited in the form of a Nasal Bougie. For the treat- ment of Acute Rhinitis the powdered leaves enter into the composition of a snuff, as follows: pulverized leaves one scruple, morphine sulphate two grains, pulverized acacia a half ounce. Atropine is occasionally em- ployed in the local treatment of Laryngeal Phthisis. Inhalations of water, in which a small proportion of tincture of belladonna has been added, relieves the pain of Chronic Laryngitis. Diseases of the Eye.—Atropine is always used in the form of the soluble sulphate or salicylate, the alkaloid itself being very sparingly soluble in water. It is useful as a powerful local anodyne, but chiefly by its action in dilating the pupil and paralyzing the muscle of accom-