Stramonium
may have been known to the ancients as a poison. Dioscorides included it among the henbanes, and Avicenna is supposed to have described it under the name of the Methel nut. Some species of Datura were frequently used in Eastern countries by thieves and sorcerers to induce delirium and subsequent coma, and the herb had the worst of reputations when Störck, of Vienna, experimented with it first on himself about 1765. In consequence of its action on the brain he gave it in cases of mania and epilepsy, and he and some practitioners who followed him claimed to have administered it in such diseases with much success. Its action as an asthma remedy was, however, a popular Indian tradition which was made known to Europeans through a General Gent about 1802. It had been recommended to him by a native, and he found so much relief from it that he introduced it to Dr. Anderson who was practising at Madras. It was stated that General Gent used it so freely and so frequently that it caused his death.
XX
FAMILIAR MEDICINES AND SOME NOTES OF THEIR HISTORIES.
Morbi, non eloquentia sed remediis, curantur.
Celsus: De Re Medica.
Black Draught.
Laxative or cathartic potions have been prescribed in all modern pharmacopœias, most of them being preparations of senna. The original one was devised by Mannagetta, an Italian physician at the court of the Emperor Rudolph II, about 1600. His prescription became popular under the title of Aqua, or Potio Laxativa Viennensis, and was popularly known all over Germany as “Wiener Trank.” The formula was 1 oz. of senna, 6 drachms of currants, 2 drachms of coriander seeds, and 2½ drachms of cream of tartar. These ingredients were packed in a bag and suspended in hot water for a night. In the morning the liquor was strained after the bag had been pressed, and 5 oz. of manna and 3 drachms of cream of tartar added. The dose was 3 to 4 oz. In the London Pharmacopœia the alkaline salt of tartar was at first prescribed with the senna, but later the acid tartrate of potash was preferred. In the Edinburgh Pharmacopœias of the eighteenth century a formula for “Infusi Sennæ Unciæ Quatuor” was included, while the London Pharmacopœias of the same period provided an alkaline infusion, and an “Infusum Sennæ Limoniatum,” containing lemon peel and lemon juice with the object of making the draught less nauseous.
The modern combination of sulphate of magnesia with an infusion or tincture of senna, and sometimes with manna, sometimes with ammonia, and always with some aromatic ingredient, began to be used about the beginning of the nineteenth century. The earliest mention of the term “black draught” that I have met with is in Paris’s “Pharmacologia,” 1824. It was dropped out from later editions. The mixture was called “black dose” in Brande’s “Materia Medica and Pharmacy,” 1839. The phrases “black draught” and “blue pills” were not given as synonyms in the Pharmacopœia until 1885. They are essentially English. Dorvault gives a formula (practically the Mist. Sennæ Co.) entitled “Potion Noire Anglaise,” and Hager has “Pilulæ Hydrargyrosæ seu pilulæ ceruleæ Anglorum.”