Ophthalmia, Strumous, or Scrofulous. This form of ophthalmia is generally met with in children of scrofulous habit of from 4 to 10 or 11 years of age. Its most distinctive characteristic is the inability of the sufferer to bear the light, the effect of which is that the eyes are kept spasmodically partially closed. If the eyes are examined, a slight fulness of the vessels usually stopping at the edge of the cornea is observable, and about the line dividing the cornea and sclerotic coat small opaque pimples or pustules are visible.
This variety of ophthalmia, being the outcome of a constitutional taint, is frequently very obstinate, and yields with difficulty to medical treatment, besides being very liable to reappear. It is not unfrequently accompanied with a troublesome cutaneous affection known as Crusta lactea, which occurs on the cheeks, and arises from the irritation caused by the flow down the cheeks of the acrid lachrymal secretion. The usual treatment consists in improving the general health and strength of the patient by means of tonics, such as quinine, quinine and iron, cod-liver oil, or syrup of iodide of iron. The diet should be nutritious and easy of digestion, and there should be no stint of fresh air.
O′′PIATES. Syn. Opiata, L. Preparations containing opium. The word is often applied in a general sense to anodynes and soporifics. In French pharmacy the name is commonly used synonymously with confections, as in the following preparations:—
Anti-dysenteric opiate—Quarin. Purified opium, 4 gr.; ipecacuanha, 1⁄2 dr.; tormentilla, 1 dr.; syrup of whortleberries and conserve of red roses, of each 6 dr.—Dose. A teaspoonful every hour.
Anti-hysterical opiate—Trousseau and Reveil. Powdered indigo, 1 oz.; white honey, 3 oz.—Dose, 1 tablespoonful daily, gradually increased until the whole is taken in a day. In hysteria, epilepsy, and nervous affections of an epileptic character.
Balsamic opiate—Trousseau and Reveil. Oleo-resin (balsam) of copaiba, 1 oz.; cubebs (in powder), 3 oz.; potassio-tartrate of iron, 21⁄2 dr.; syrup of quince, q. s. In gleet.—Dose, 3 boluses the size of a nut, thrice daily.
Charcoal opiate—Ratier. Willow charcoal (recent), 1 oz.; prepared chalk, 1 dr.; powdered white sugar, 2 oz.: rose water, q. s. to form an electuary. In diarrhœa and incipient cholera, in dysentery with fetid stools, and in gastralgia, flatulence, &c. By substituting calcined magnesia for chalk it becomes an excellent remedy for habitual constipation.
Cubeb opiate—Deyeaux. Powdered cubebs, 4 dr.; powdered camphor, 1 dr.; mix, and divide it into 18 powders.—Dose. One, 3 or 4 times daily, in gleet, painful and scalding micturition. &c.
O′′PIUM. Syn. Opium (B. P., Ph. L., E, & D.), L. The juice inspissated by spontaneous evaporation, obtained by incision from the unripe capsules of the Papaver somniferum, grown in Asia Minor.
Hist.—“It is uncertain at what period opium was first known and introduced into medicine. Hippocrates recommends the meconion or poppy juice, in a disease of the uterus; and Dioscorides, on the authority of Erasistratus, tells us that Diagoras (who was contemporary, it is supposed, with Hippocrates) condemned the use of opium. These