Therapeutics and materia medica : A systematic treatise on the action and uses of medicinal agents, including their description and history / by Alfred Stillé.

  • Stillé, Alfred, 1813-1900.
Date:
1874
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Therapeutics and materia medica : A systematic treatise on the action and uses of medicinal agents, including their description and history / by Alfred Stillé. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    will bring on vertigo, nausea, and frequently vomiting.1 Locally, it acts as an irritant. Its medicinal power was first indicated by Schoepf as being ex- pectorant, stimulating, and incitive (incidens), and the Rev. Dr. Cutler, of Massachusetts, drew attention to its virtues in spasmodic asthma by describing its effects upon this disease in bis own person. He employed the powdered root in doses of from thirty to fifty grains during the paroxysms. Dr. Bigelow states that in certain forms of asthma, and in chronic catarrh, it succeeded, even when the dis- ease had previously been of great obstinacy ; and Eberle says that in chronic cough, attended with a cold, phlegmatic habit of body, he employed it with the most decided benefit. Dr. Thatcher, and also Dr. Heintzelman, state it to be useful in the spasmodic stage of whooping-cough. In hysteria, spasmodic pains, in “ spasmodic affec- tions of the abdominal muscles during parturition or after delivery ” {Thatcher), in chronic rheumatism, and also in “dropsy,” it has been recommended. It may therefore be used when its quality is good ; hut several other medicines are more to he depended upon. From ten to twenty grains of the recently-dried root may he given at a dose. An infusion made by displacement, with an ounce of the root to a pint of cold water, may be prescribed in the dose of one or two tablespoonfuls. A saturated tincture may he prepared in the same manner, and administered in the dose of one or two teaspoonfuls. SUCCIJSTUM.—Ambee. Description.—Amber is supposed to be the fossil resinous pro- duct of some extinct species of conifera, an opinion based upon the microscopic examination of the vegetable fragments contained in it. Other views of its nature and origin have been proposed by various naturalists, who have pronounced it to be concrete petro- leum, hardened honey, oil of turpentine solidified by an acid, a product of the decomposition of wax, and various other things altogether fanciful.2 Amber is found chiefly upon the borders of the Baltic Sea, and in the Forth of Asia. It occurs in yellow or reddish translucent masses, which are brittle, and have a resinous fracture. When rubbed briskly, it becomes negatively electric ; and at the same time, or, still better, when powdered and thrown upon coals, it emits a grateful and aromatic fragrance. It has no decided taste. It is soluble in strong alkaline fluids, and somewhat less so in ether. Two preparations of amber have been used in medicine, viz., succinic acid and rectified oil of amber (Oleum Succini). The latter is obtained by the dry distillation of amber. When freshly prepared, it is a yellowish transparent liquid, with a pungent and peculiar odor, and a hot, acrid taste. In composition it is a hydrocarbon, but it is oxidized by exposure to the air, and becomes ' Mat. Med., p. 167. 2 For a learned history of this substance consult Strumpf, HaDdbuch, etc., i. 787.