Observations on the preparation of soporific medicines from garden lettuce, the Lactuca sativa of Linnaeus / by Andrew Duncan.

  • Duncan, Andrew, 1744-1828.
Date:
[1812?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the preparation of soporific medicines from garden lettuce, the Lactuca sativa of Linnaeus / by Andrew Duncan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    of opium at that time is contraindicated. Hence, it has been long a desideratum in the heahng art, to discover other powerful quieting medi- cines. For, although it is hardly to be expected, that an article will ever be discovered, so exten- sively useful as opium, yet, a good soporific may be found, which with some, will have less in- fluence, either as exciting sickness at stomach, as occasioning confusion of head, or as inducing «. state of constipation. It has been the opinion of many, that all the milky juices spontaneously exuding from wound- ed vegetables, possess somewhat of the same se- dative power, with the milky juice of the poppy. Few plants in Britain, afford such milky juice more copiously than the common garden Lettuce, the Lactuca sativa of Linnaeus; and every one must have observed, that this juice, when spon- taneously inspissated by the heat of the sun, on the wounded plant, soon assumes the dark co- lour of opium, while, at the same time, it pos- sesses in a high degree the peculiar, and I may say, specific taste, which distinguishes that sub- stance. And besides this, it is a well known fact, that lettuce was much used by the ancients as a soporific. / These circumstances led me to turn my thoughts on some method of collecting and pre- paring this substance, that I might try its ef- fects in the practice of medicine. And, after