A handbook of local therapeutics / edited by Harrison Allen.

Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A handbook of local therapeutics / edited by Harrison Allen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    237/554 (page 225)
    ERGOTA. Other chemists have found ergoiic acid, sphacelic acid, and the alkaloid cornutme. The question as to the value and identity of these principles is obscure. The article usually ild as Er-otin is not an alkaloid, but is a solid extract, and should be so designated. A of Ergot (of uncertain strength), a/^W ^x/mr/ (one cubic centimetre of which represents the activity of one gramme of ergot), and the Wine of Ergot (con- taining the activity of fifteen parts of ergot in one hundred of wine) are official. General Surgery.—Ergot may be used with great advantage hypo- dermically (Squibb's fluid extract, Tiij to gr. j) in Hemorrhage from the Intestine in typhoid fever. Ergotin, given hypodermically in five-grain doses, is occasionally of service in checking oozing after operations involving the hand and foot, where elevation and pressure have failed. Schiinking (^Centralbl. f. GyndkoL, February 15, 1888) recommends the treatment of uterine fibroids with injections, with an absolutely clean hypodermic needle, of fresh, pure solutions of ergotin, into the central part of the anterior lip of the uterus; the injection not to go deeper than one-fourth of an inch, and care being taken not to insert the needle into the tumor or the body of the uterus. Ergot is extremely useful in Post-partum Hemorrhages, arresting the bleeding by producing firm contraction of the uterus, and by its influence on the blood-vessels. It is the most valuable of remedies in uterine hemorrhage, checking the bleeding when other remedies have failed. In these condi- tions ergot is usually given by the mouth in full doses. Where a very prompt and decided action is demanded, either ergotin or the fluid extract may be given hypodermically. Eldridge and others advise the use of ergot by injection in the treatment of Gonorrhcea. Fluid ext. ergot, one part; water, five parts. In rare cases the use of ergot, by this means, may be productive of good results, but as a rule the injection of lead and zinc will prove a more satisfactory means of dealing with this affection. In Prolapsus of the Rectum, D. H. Agnew and Langenbeck advise, before resorting to more radical measures, the hypodermic use of the concentrated fluid extract of ergot, introduced into the submucous tissues of the rectum, the dose being about five to seven grains of the drug, or its equivalent; the injections to be repeated every second day for two weeks. Langenbeck advises a similar method of treatment in cases of Hemor- rhoids, injecting ergotin beneath the rectal mucous membrane. This mode of treatment is based on the property possessed by the drug of ex- citing contraction of the muscular walls of the blood-vessels. Langen- beck also carried out the same idea in the treatment of Aneurism, by injecting into the subcutaneous tissues external to the sac a concentrated preparation of ergotin, with the hope of producing muscular contraction of the walls. He cites a case in which an old aneurism of the radial 15