Therapeutics and materia medica: a systematic treatise on the action and uses of medicinal agents, including their description and history (Volume 2).

  • Stillé, Alfred, 1813-1900.
Date:
1860
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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 (Volume 2). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    fourteen epileptics treated by it, the luckiest were they to whom it did no mischief.1 In mania, for which it was recommended on the principle of substitution, no recent writer of authority commends it. There is more show of its utility in the opposite state of mental dis- order, or hypochondriasis, for which Frank regards it as a valuable remedy, and Dr. Sigmoud thinks that in this disease it is particularly adapted not only to procure sleep, but to soothe the disordered spirits with more quickness and certainty than anything else. Whyte men- tions it as a succedaneum to opium, although inferior, and directs from a grain and a half to three or four grains of the extract, night and morning, for the purpose of quieting nervous and hysteric symptoms, when opium confines the bowels.2 Neuralgia and other Painful Affections.—In facial neuralgia, Meglin's pills, consisting each of one grain of extract of henbane, and one of oxide of zinc, were greatly extolled by this physician. Their dose was increased daily, until the sight became affected, or they disagreed with the stomach. An attempt has been made to show that the al- leged activity of the medicine resided in its vegetable ingredient, but the very insignificant success which has attended its administration by other hands than the inventor, diminishes the interest of this ques- tion. A poultice of the fresh leaves of henbane is useful in calm- ing neuralgic as well as other pains, but has no superiority over that made with stramonium leaves, and is not, perhaps, equal to other forms of narcotic fomentation. All severe local pains of the paroxys- mal sort are much more amenable to opium given internally, con- jointly, with analogous applications to the affected part; but where an anodyne must be taken habitually, and there is any peculiar mor- bid susceptibility to the effects of opium, hyoscyamus may be advan- tageously substituted. Under these circumstances, and provided no febrile excitement or headache be present, it frequently merits the encomium of Dr. Christison, who states that it allays pain, soothes excitability, and induces soft refreshing sleep; the last, as we believe, only because it has fulfilled the previous conditions. The anodyne properties of henbane may also be usefully employed for correcting the tendency to gripe, which belongs to the resinous and some other purgatives. For occasional catharsis, the association of the principal medicine with laudanum is preferable, but hyoscyamus enters more appropriately into the composition of those pills and other forms of laxative medicines, which are intended to be used habitually. By the Germans, it is employed, almost to the exclusion of opium, in the dis- eases of children. 1 Tissot, (Euvres, vol. x. p. 338. 2 Obs., &c, On Nervous Disorders, p. 363.