Facts establishing the efficacy of the opiate friction in spasmodic and febrile diseases. Also, outlines of an attempt to investigate the nature, causes, and method of cure, of hydrophobia and tetanus ... To which are added, cases and remarks / [Michael Ward].

  • Ward, Michael, active 1809.
Date:
[1809]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Facts establishing the efficacy of the opiate friction in spasmodic and febrile diseases. Also, outlines of an attempt to investigate the nature, causes, and method of cure, of hydrophobia and tetanus ... To which are added, cases and remarks / [Michael Ward]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    diseases Dr. Chiarenti’s discovery promised to be of great importance; and our author imme- diately resolved to carry it into practice. He was not, however, ignorant of the effects already observed by many practitioners from the external exhibition of this drug, and was persuaded that its action on the nervous system might be ob- tained, though not introduced into the stomach, without being dissolved in the gastric fluid, from the mere emanatio'n of its volatile aroma. He therefore resolved to try it in the form of a sim- ple ointment, made by incorporating a dram of finely powdered opium, with a pound of axunge. An ounce of this ointment, containing six grains of opium, procured sleep to a restless boy, who had been an idiot from his birth. Its effects were still more surprising on a peasant, in the heighth of a paroxysm of the most furious mania. These frictions always rendered him calm, and sometimes threw him into a state of lethai gic stu- por. In this case a compleat cure teas at last effected. It was exhibited in the same manner to twelve other persons, affected with mental or re-active madness; and from his observations on them he concludes, that although the sleep produced was not always proportionate, either in intensity or duration, to the dose of the opium; yet a. state of calmness constantly suc- ceeded, sooner or later; and five of them have been cured, without the use of any other remedy. Cer- tain of the efficacy of the opiate ointment, he V