In this work Dover relates a number of wonderful cures he had effected, gives names and addresses of many of his patients, often adding grateful letters from them. He had but limited confidence in the “clan of prejudiced gentlemen,” as he calls the College of Physicians, and he complains vigorously of the extortions of the Apothecaries. Metallic quicksilver was his panacea, and he prescribed it so lavishly that he acquired the title of “the quicksilver doctor.” It forms balsam with the blood, he says. That is why it cures venereal diseases. Other doctors gave it, but in disguise, in the form of Ethiops Mineral generally; which was like using the sword in the scabbard.
His formula for “Diaphoretic Powder” is given in a chapter on gout. It was as follows:—
“Take opium 1 oz.; saltpetre and tartar vitriolated, each 4 oz.; liquorish 1 oz.; ipecacuanha, 1 oz. Put the saltpetre and tartar into a red-hot mortar, stirring till they have done flaming. Then powder them very fine. After that slice in your opium; grind these to a powder, and then mix the other powders with them. Dose, from 40 to 60 or 70 grains in a glass of white wine posset going to bed, covering up warm, and drinking a quart or three pints of the posset while sweating. In two or three hours at furthest the patient will be free from pain, and though before not able to put his foot to the ground, ’tis very much if he cannot walk next day. The remedy may be taken once a week or once a month.”
The dose appears to us in these degenerate days a large one, and Dover states that “some apothecaries have desired their patients to make their wills before they venture upon so large a dose.” But he declares he has given up to 100 grains, and the patient has appeared abroad the next day. The notion of danger, he adds, proceeds entirely from their ignorance, and from the want of knowing those ingredients that are mixed up with it, for they naturally weaken the power of the opium.
Dover’s powder first appeared in the London Pharmacopœia for 1788. Probably it was adopted after the quack Ward had made it famous as a “sweating powder.” Ward died in 1761 and the formulæ for his remedies were published soon after his death.
Unguentum Elemi.
Ointment of elemi was in all the London Pharmacopœias, and was only dropped from the B.P. 1898. In the earlier issues it was called “unguentum or linimentum Arcœi,” because it had been introduced and recommended by Arcœus of Amsterdam in 1574, for healing wounds. A similar ointment was called “Balsamum Arcœi” in the Prussian Pharmacopœia of 1847. The inventor’s formula was to melt together six parts each of gum elemi and turpentine, and add six parts of melted stag’s suet, and two parts of oil of St. John’s wort. Arcœus was a Spaniard by birth, and an eminent authority on the treatment of wounds.
Fowler’s Solution of Arsenic.
Thomas Fowler kept an apothecary’s shop in York from 1760 to 1774. In the latter year he relinquished trade, and went to Edinburgh to study medicine. Graduating as M.D. in 1778, he settled at Stafford, and was appointed physician to the Infirmary of that town. Later, he returned to York, where he acquired a large practice, and where he died in 1801.
It was in 1786, during his residence at Stafford, that Dr. Fowler published his treatise, entitled “Medical Reports of the Effects of Arsenic in the Cure of Agues, Remitting Fevers, and Periodic Headaches.” It was only a small work, but it made Fowler’s reputation, and introduced arsenic into the list of recognised remedies. The doctor stated that a certain Patent Ague Drops known as Tasteless Ague and Fever Drops, which had acquired some reputation in this country, had been occasionally tried in the Stafford Infirmary, and had been found efficacious. With the assistance of the apothecary to the Infirmary, a Mr. Hughes (“whose industry, attention, and abilities in his professional line justly merit applause”) he had ascertained that these drops were a preparation of arsenic, and he goes on to detail the experiments which led him and Mr. Hughes to devise the following formula as representative of the patent medicine:—