Dr. Pereira's Elements of materia medica and therapeutics : abridged and adapted for the use of medical and pharmaceutical practitioners and students and comprising all the medicines of the British Pharmacopœia, with such others as are frequently ordered in prescriptions or required by the physician / edited by Robert Bentley and Theophilus Redwood ; with an appendix.

  • Jonathan Pereira
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Pereira's Elements of materia medica and therapeutics : abridged and adapted for the use of medical and pharmaceutical practitioners and students and comprising all the medicines of the British Pharmacopœia, with such others as are frequently ordered in prescriptions or required by the physician / edited by Robert Bentley and Theophilus Redwood ; with an appendix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1101/1180 (page 1069)
    Palmacece.] ARECA. [1069] betel nut catechu resembles tbe official catechu, and that obtained from the Acacia Catechu. Therapeutics.—Various practitioners have testified to the astrin- gent properties of areca nuts; among others, Dr. J. Shortt states that the powdered nut, in doses of ten or fifteen grains every three or four hours, is useful in checking diarrhoea arising from debility. The betel nut when coarsely powdered has long been used as a vermifuge for dogs, and it has now been introduced into the phar- macopoeia on account of its supposed efficacy in promoting the ex- pulsion of tapeworm in the human subject. Dr. Barclay of Leicester, in an article published in the British Medical Journal, August 1861, appears to have been the first to call attention to the remedial value of areca nut in the expulsion of tapeworm. Dr. Barclay says, ' The areca nut is the kernel of the fruit of the species of palm called Areca Catechu ; it is commonly called the betel nut, being used along with the leaves of the betel pepper for chewing in eastern countries. It requires to be ground and then powdered. The dose I give is usually four, five, or six drachms, which is easily taken stirred up in milk. The worm is usually discharged four or five hours afterwards, alive. The taste of it is simply astringent; but with all remedies I have found the necessity for a smart purga- tive the day previous to their administration, and for a fast the evening before the vermifuge is taken.' Dr. Edwin Morris of Spalding, upon reading Dr. Barclay's paper, administered it in the following case:—'John T., aged forty-six years, for several weeks past had been losing flesh, had occasional headaches, nausea, and feeling of faintness with loss of appetite. He had passed several pieces of tapeworm. After fasting from breakfast the previous day, on the following morning, at 6 a.m., four drachms of powdered areca nut were taken in milk. Within two hours afterwards he passed six yards and a half of worm. For more than a week afterwards, no more worm coming away, four drachms more of the areca were taken in a similar manner. Within an hour six yards more of worm were passed. From the flat, regular size of the worm, it was evi- dent that the head had not yet been expelled. After previously fasting, a purgative was given ; and early the next morning six drachms of the areca were given as before, and in a quarter of an hour two yards and a half more worm were passed alive, making al- together fifteen yards. tJpon examining the worm, it gradually tapered down to a small bulb about the size of a pin's head. The man has been much better since, and no more joints have been passed.' In reference to its reputed anthelmintic properties, Dr. Waring, in the Pharmacopoeia of India, says, 'Anthelmintic virtues have been assigned to the nut, but it can hardly have any claim to this [3 y 2]