A manual of the diseases of the skin / by Balmanno Squire.

  • Squire, Balmanno (Alexander John Balmanno), -1908.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of the diseases of the skin / by Balmanno Squire. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    200 gation or ointment, mercury in aqueous solution, as a fumigation or in ointment, turpentine, the various essential oils, etc. Of the ' powder' of Staphisagria-seeds (one of the most efficient of the above-mentioned remedies) it may be said, that it is at best but a clumsy contrivance. The seeds are incapable of being reduced to anything like powder. The most skilful drug-grinder cannot pro- duce with them any better product than a coarse meal, much like linseed-meal,—an utterly unmanageable ap- plication for the purpose, unless, indeed, a poultice were to be made of it. Finding that this meal con- tained a certain amount of oily matter, the author had the oil removed from a small quantity of the meal by percolation with ether, and found that the meal was then capable of being reduced into a fine powder, Ho employed this powder in several cases of Phthiriasis, and found it quite inert. On inquiring what propor- tion of oil had been extracted from the meal, he found that it amounted to as much as one half (by weight) of- the meal. On making trial of the oil, suitably diluted with olive-oil, he found it as efficient as any remedy he has ever tried against Phthiriasis. A cheap way of preparing the oil for application, is to digest the seeds in melted lard and strain while hot. The filtrate is an ointment of the seeds of Stavesacre. Two drachms of the bruised seeds should be used to an ounce of lard. The powder of the flowers of the Pyrethrum is, in the author's experience, a much less efficacious remedy than the Stavesacre. P