Royle's manual of materia medica and therapeutics : including the preparations of the British pharmacopoeia and other approved medicines.
- John Forbes Royle
- Date:
- 1876
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Royle's manual of materia medica and therapeutics : including the preparations of the British pharmacopoeia and other approved medicines. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
802/860 (page 788)
![volatilises slowly even at low temperatures, and the vapour power- fully irritates the eyes. Action. Uses.—A violent irritant, acting externally as a rube- facient and vesicant. If 20 or 30 grains of the powder be taken into the stomach it produces immediate emesis, and the patient soon becomes exhausted by repeated vomiting and severe epigastric pain, then follow involuntary discharges of f?eces, dysuria, with bloody urine, severe dysenteric purging, with bloody stools; and in women menorrhagia. The pain continues very severe, and the patient ultimately falls into a state of collapse, and dies in about forty-eight hours from the time of ingestion of the poison. Severe catarrhal inflammation of the gastro-intestinal mucous membrane with hsemorrhagic patches, and severe congestion, with ecchymosis of the kidneys, bladder, uterus, and ovaries, are the prominent post- mortem indications of its irritant action. In small doses it is a stimulant diuretic and emmenagogue; useful in inducing a healthy state of the mucous membrane in chronic gonorrhoea and leucorrhoea. In full medicinal doses cantharides acts as a powerful stimulant to the sexual organs. In debility of these organs and in paralysis of the bladder, cantharides, in combination with iron, has sometimes been used with advantage. It is chiefly employed as a vesicant, the blister appearing after from six to twelve hours' contact with the skin. Strangury and boils—the one an immediate and the other a remote effect—are the consequences of too prolonged a contact of the blister. Ulceration, or even sloughing, may follow in delicate children from the same cause. It is also employed as a rubefacient in alopecia. Treatment of Poisoning by Cantharides.—The free use of chalk and o]3ium, and olive oil, both by the mouth and the rectum. 1. Tinctura Cantharidis, P.B. Tincture of Cantharides. Prejxtred by macerating J ounce of cantharides in coarse powder in 1 pint of proof spirit for seven days, with occasional agitation, straining, pressing, filtering, and adding sufficient proof spirit to make 1 pint. Action and Use.—A stimulant diuretic in amenorrhoea, leucor- rhoea, incontinence of urine from atony of the bladder, and in gleet. Mixed with 4 parts of rose-water, it may be used as a stimu- lating hair wash. Dose.—5 to 20 minims, cautiously increased. 2. Acetum Cantharidis, P.B. Vinegar of Cantharides. Preparation.—Mix 13 fluid ounces of acetic acid with 2 fluid ounces of glacial acetic acid, and digest 2 ounces of cantharides in powder, in this mixture for two hours at a temperature of 200°; then transfer the ingredients after they have cooled to a percolator, and when the liquid ceases to pass pour 5 fluid ounces of acetic acid over the residuum in the apparatus. As soon as the percolation is com2:)lete, subject the contents of the percolator to pressui-e, filter](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21075748_0802.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
