Volume 1

The standard physician : a new and practical encyclopaedia of medicine and hygiene especially prepared for the household / edited by Sir James Crichton-Browne [and others].

Date:
1908-1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The standard physician : a new and practical encyclopaedia of medicine and hygiene especially prepared for the household / edited by Sir James Crichton-Browne [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Calcium Cannabis Indica THE STANDARD PHYSICIAN 300 the cerebrum, causing wakefulness and an increased facility for work. It also has a stimulating action on the heart and blood-vessels, and causes an increased flow of urine. CALCIUM.—A widely distributed element, occurring most commonly in limestone as calcium carbonate. It is an important constituent of the bones and teeth, forming the inorganic basis of these struotures. The effect of an insufficiency of lime-salts in the bones is shown in the bony deformities which occur in Rickets. Probably the most common form of calcium employed in medicine is chalk, used in chalk mixture for diarrhcea. Chalk is a calcium carbonate made by chemical action on the shells of various molluscs. It is a soft, white substance, insoluble in water, and having an earthy taste. Chalk is one of the remedies often given for watery diarrhcea, because it has a slight astringent action and tends to overcome intestinal acidity. The dose of the compound chalk mixture is about a teaspoonful. Lime-water, a very weak solution of calcium hydrate, is also frequently used as an antacid. CALOMEL.—Mild mercurous chloride (Hg^ CC), one of the most im])or- tant of the mercury compounds used in medicine. It is used in a vast variety of ways, but chiefly in vapour form, by sublimation, for the treatment of syphilis ; and in its powdered form, usually triturated with sugar of milk, for internal use. Calomel, like all of the mercury salts, is an irritant, but being almost insoluble its irritating action is slight, or long delayed. It is used as a stimulating dusting-powder in many chronic skin-affections, and also in many chronic forms of keratitis. Internally it is used in the treatment of syphilis, but more often as a cathartic. Being irritating it stimulates the muscular movements of the alimentary canal, and thus empties the intestine, usually in from 6 to 8 hours after taking. It stimu- lates the gall-bladder also, and thus aids in emptying this viscus ; but it has not been proved that it has any specific action on the secreting power of the liver-cells, notwithstanding the wide belief in the power of calomel to “ stir the liver.” Calomel is particularly valuable as a cathartic, as it clears the intestine of its contents ; and, by causing an increased discharge of bile from the gall- bladder, it adds an additional amount of that important secretion to the intestinal contents. This is particularly valuable in that condition known as ” biliousness,” in which the mild catarrhal inflammation of the duodenum, spreading to the biliary passages, tends to limit somewhat the discharge of bile into the intestines. CALUMBA.—The root of an African vine, Jateorhiza palmata. It con- tains a neutral body, calumhin, the alkaloid herherin, and calionhic acid. It is used only as a bitter tonic ; and by reason of its not containing any tannic acid it is frecpiently combined with iron in the treatment of the secondary ansemias.