Medicines, their uses and mode of administration : including a complete conspectus of the three British pharmacopoeias, an account of all the new remedies, and an appendix of formulae / by J. Moore Neligan.
- John Neligan
- Date:
- 1849
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Medicines, their uses and mode of administration : including a complete conspectus of the three British pharmacopoeias, an account of all the new remedies, and an appendix of formulae / by J. Moore Neligan. 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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![CHAPTER III. ANTISPASMODICS. Antispasmodics, as their name indicates, are medicines which counteract irregular or inordinate muscular action—spasm. This deranged state of the system depends on so many different causes, and is produced by so many different sources of irritation, that its success- ful treatment will very frequently depend on the employment of reme- dies calculated to remove the more immediate cause or source of irri- tation, by which the spasmodic affection is produced. It follows, therefore, that under peculiar circumstances the remedies, which will be found most successful in counteracting spasm, must be derived from very different divisions of the Materia Medica; and thus the term Antispasmodic will become applicable to a narcotic, a sedative, a stimu- lant, a cathartic, or a tonic. There are, however, certain medicines which appear to exert a direct control over spasmodic action inde- pendent of any influence upon its exciting causes, and these will form the subject of our inquiry in the present chapter. Assafo:tida., [U. S.] D. L. E. Gummy-resinous exudation of Ferula assafcetida, D. L. E.—probably also of Ferula Persica, E. A native of Persia, especially the provinces of Khorasan and Laristan ; belonging to the Linnaean class and order Pentandria Digynia, and to the Natural family Umbellifera (Apiacece, Lindley.) Botanical Characters.—The root is long, tapering, of the thickness of a man's leg, black externally, white and juicy internally; of a powerful alliaceous odour, sending up many radical leaves, about two feet long; and after some years a round stem clothed with leafless sheaths, eight or nine feet high, and bearing yellow flowers in umbels, succeeded by flat thin reddish-bruwn fruit. The whole plant dies after it has once flowered and ripened its seed. Preparation.—When the plant is four years old, the root-leaves are re- moved, and in forty days afterwards the top of the root is sliced off, a fetid juice exudes, which concretes in a couple of days, is then scraped off, and a fresh slice of the root made—more juice exudes, is collected as above, and the same process repeated from ten to twelve times within six weeks—until the root is completely exhausted. The juice is exposed to the sun to become harder, and then packed in casks and cases which are sent, by way of Bom- bay, to Europe. Physical Properties.—Assafcetida is met with in commerce in ir- regular lumps from half a pound to three pounds in weight; of a pinkish-yellow, and reddish-brown color externally; when recently cut, of a pearl-white color with a waxy lustre, but on exposure to the air rapidly acquiring a rose tint. It has a powerfully disagreeable, peculiar, alliaceous odour, and a strong, bitter, acrid taste. Sp. gr. 1-31 to 135. Chemical Properties.—It is composed of 47*20 per cent of resin, 4*60 of volatile oil, 19'40 of gum with traces of saline matters, 9*70 of sulphate and carbonate of lime, with some bassorin, extractive, lignin, &c. (Brandes). The resin and volatile oil are the medicinal](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21143602_0047.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
