DOORS. Much annoyance is sometimes experienced from the creaking of doors. This may be prevented by rubbing a little soap or a mixture of tallow and black-lead on the hinges; or by applying to them with a feather a little sweet oil once or twice a year. The trifling trouble and expense (a penny or two a twelvemonth) will be amply repaid by their noiselessness and greater durability. To prevent the noise of doors slamming, a small piece of vulcanised india rubber, cork, or leather may be placed so as to receive the shock.
DOSE. In medicine the quantity taken or prescribed at one time. The doses of medicaments vary with the sex, age, temperament, constitutional strength, habituation, and idiosyncrasies of individuals. Different circumstances, especially of climate, exercise an important influence on the activity of medicines. Thus, the inhabitants of England and the northern countries of Europe bear much larger doses in their own climates than when they remove to warmer latitudes. Warmth, indeed, appears to promote the action of most medicaments, whilst cold acts in a contrary way. Nor does the same rule apply to all medicines. Calomel, for instance, is generally borne better by children than by adults; while opium affects them more powerfully, and requires the dose to be diminished considerably below that indicated by mere calculation or analogy with other medicines.
Prescribers ought not to forget that the action of medicines is not simply proportioned to the amount, but that each remedy has a dose below which it either produces no effect or one contrary to that which we desire it to produce. Dr Paris remarks, “that powerful doses are disposed to produce local rather than general effects;” and Dr Barlow gives it as his opinion that “practitioners often err, especially in the treatment of chronic maladies, from requiring an obvious effect from each dose administered.” Adult women are said to require only three fourths the full dose for men. The following rules and tables have been framed chiefly with reference to age; but, as Dr R. E. Griffith correctly observes, “no scheme can be devised, founded on age alone, to which there are not many exceptions.”
I. Formula of Dr Young.
For children under 12 years, the doses of most medicines must be diminished in the proportion of the age to the age increased by 12. Thus, at 2 years, the dose will be 1-7th of that for an adult.
2
for —————— = 1-7th.
2 + 12
II. Posological Table of Gaubius.
For an adult, suppose the dose to be 1, or 1 drachm (60 grains).
| Under | 1 | year | will require | 1⁄12 or 5 grains. |
| ” | 2 | years | ” | 1⁄8 or 8 grains. |
| ” | 3 | ” | ” | 1⁄6 or 10 grains. |
| ” | 4 | ” | ” | 1⁄4 or 15 grains. |
| ” | 7 | ” | ” | 1⁄3 or 1 scruple. |
| ” | 14 | ” | ” | 1⁄2 or 1⁄2 drachm. |
| ” | 20 | ” | ” | 2⁄3 or 2 scruples. |
| ” | 21 | to 60, the full dose, or 1 or 1 drachm. | ||
| Above this age an inverse gradation must be observed. | ||||
III. Posological Table of Phoebus.