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.

    75/554 (page 63)
    Troches of Tannic Acid (containing each one grain of tannin) and the Ointment of Tannic Acid (containing 10 per cent.) Quercus alba. The effect of tannic acid resembles more closely that of alum than it does that of any other mineral astringent. It is more irritating, however, than the agent last named. This effect can be reduced in a measure by combination with borax and a small proportion of carbolic acid. A paste prepared by mixing tannic acid two-thirds and gallic acid one-third is thought by some practitioners to be superior as a haemostatic powder to one in which only tannic acid enters. It enters in combination with gun-cotton and ether, and in this form is known as styptic collodion. (See Section on General Surgery.) A combination of the effects of tannic acid and carbolic acid is obtained as follows: to a half pint of water add one drachm of tannic acid and two grains of carbolic acid j filter thoroughly with care. Gly- cerite of tannic acid is useful in the proportions of glycerin five parts and tannic acid one part. A tannated cotton is prepared by steeping absorbent cotton in a solu- tion of tannic acid. Liideritz {Berlin Klin. Wochenschrift, 1890) claims that tannic acid is antiseptic, and that through its presence infusion of coffee is antiseptic. Tannic acid is of especial value on mucous membranes and on abraded or superficially ulcerated skin surfaces. It is noted that many of its indications are found in localities where sound integument joins a mucus- or ichor-yielding lesion, as at the nostril, anus or vulva, and the margins of ulcers, fissures, etc. Rosenstirn found that an application of a solution of tannin to the mesentery of a frog actually increased the diameter of the vessels. L. Lewin {Medicinische Wochenschrift, April, 1881, p. 202) believes that the astringent effect of the acid is best secured by a powder containing tannin or by the acid used in a pure form, and that solutions of tannin (especially those in which tannin-albuminates have been formed and the precipitate again dissolved in an excess of albumin) constitute a means by which tannin can be applied to the economy without astringent effects following. He makes a statement that tannin-albuminates when formed in the tissues as a result of local application are gradually absorbed in the albumin-bearing states of the tissue fluids and of the blood. General Surgery.—In fissures it is recommended that a strong solution of chlorate of potassium and tannic acid be applied (see intro- ductory note), or a glycerite of tannin, in which chlorate of potassium is dissolved may be painted over the surface with a camel's hair brush. This is a most satisfactory way of employing these agents. D. Hayes Agnew held tannic acid in high esteem as the foremost of chemico-vital haemostatics, owing to its power of coagulating albumin.