Tinct. Cinchonæ Co.
The official formula for this tincture is slightly modified from that devised by John Huxham, M.D., and published in his Essay on Fevers, 1755. It first appeared in the P.L. 1788 as a College preparation.
John Huxham was born as Totnes in 1692, and was the son of a butcher. He studied medicine under Boerhaave at Leyden, but graduated M.D. at Rheims. Then he returned to England and after a time settled at Plymouth. He was a Nonconformist, and at first depended on the dissenting portion of the population for his practice, but it did not expand as fast as he wished and it is alleged that he was not above some of the tricks satirised by novelists; as, for example, being called out of chapel, riding at full speed through the streets, walking about with a gold-headed cane, wearing a red coat and followed by a footman who carried his gloves. He, however, acquired a considerable reputation both locally and nationally; was elected F.R.S. in 1739, and was awarded the Copley medal in 1755 for a treatise on antimony in which he strongly recommended an Essentia or Vinum Antimonii made by infusing 1 oz. of glass of antimony in 24 oz. of sound Madeira wine for 10 or 12 days, then decanting and filtering. He advised doses of 30 to 80 drops of this in tea, wine, beer, or other liquid, as an alterant, attenuant, and diaphoretic. The treatise though verbose does not seem to have had any special merit.
Dr. Huxham.
His Essay on Fevers was much more important and has been highly esteemed by competent critics. He also wrote a valuable note on scurvy in seamen, recommending a more abundant supply of vegetables on voyages, and was the first to describe the malignant ulcerous sore throat now called diphtheria.
Huxham’s formula for Tinct. Cinchonæ Co. as given by himself was as follows:
Cort. Peruv. opt. pulv. ℥ ii, Flav. Aurant. Hispan. ℥ iss, Rad. serpent. Virgin. ℥ iii, Croci Anglic. ℈ iv, Coccinel. ℈ ii, Sp. Vini Gallici, (Brandy), ℥ xx. F. Infusio clausa per dies aliquot (tres saltern quatuerve) deinde coletur. The dose was ʒ i to ℥ ss every 4, 6, or 8 hours with 10, 15, or 20 drops of elixir of vitriol in diluted wine. Huxham says of this tincture “it tends to strengthen the Solids, to prevent the further Dissolution and Corruption of the blood and in the event to restore its Crassis.” He has previously stated that it is a very useful remedy “not only in slow, nervous fevers, but also in the putrid, pestilential, and petechial, especially in the Decline.” But he adds, “if the patient is costive or hath a tense and humid abdomen, I always premise a dose of rhubarb, manna, or the like.”
According to Dr. Paris, Huxham believed in complicated prescribing. “There are several prescriptions of Huxham extant,” we read in “Pharmacologia,” “which contain more than four hundred ingredients.”