Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1866 edition. Excerpt: ...so susceptible of the action of the medicine, that the smallest dose cannot be taken without its producing free, or even violent salivation. Such cases are among the most vexatious which it falls to the lot of a medical man to encounter. He orders, perhaps, a mild, ordinary dose of some mercurial, and finds it has produced salivation, injuring the patient, and probably entailing days--it may be weeks--of discomfort. It is only experience of the fact which can point out the individuals to which this accident mat happen; but, having once occurred, it ought always to be kept in mind, and any person thus liable, having occasion to change their medical attendant, the fact should be communicated at the very first interview. Unfortunately, but little can be done to cut short, or even alleviate greatly, a course of mercurial salivation: cold, of course, is to be avoided, the alumwash for the mouth, or tincture of myrrh, or camphorated spirit in water, used to rinse the mouth, afford some relief. A lotion made with two drachms of chloric ether, tt eight ounces of water, is also serviceable and diminishes the fetor; solution of chloride of soda, in the same proportions, will have the same effect. A few leeches maybe applied under the jaw, and saline aperients, such as Seidlitz powders, or Epsom salts, largely diluted, may also be given with advantage, if the patient can swallow them. and is not in a very reduced state. The excitation of mercurial action must always, as much as possible, be avoided in scrofulous constitutions; in such, mercury seldom acts as beneficially as in others. Mercurial action is not unfrequently induced by persons continuing to take, inadvertently, aperient pills, which contain small doses of the medicine. When these are...