A few years ago, a certain Doctor Hugh Martin, a surgeon of one of the Pennsylvania regiments stationed at Pittsburg, during the latter part of the late war, came to this city, and advertised to cure cancers with a medicine which he said he had discovered in the woods, in the neighbourhood of the garrison. As Dr. Martin had once been my pupil, I took the liberty of waiting upon him, and asked him some questions respecting his discovery. His answers were calculated to make me believe, that his medicine was of a vegetable nature, and that it was originally an Indian remedy. He showed me some of the medicine, which appeared to be the powder of a well-dried root of some kind. Anxious to see the success of this medicine in cancerous sores, I prevailed upon the doctor to admit me to see him apply it in two or three cases. I observed, in some instances, he applied a powder to the parts affected, and in others only touched them with a feather dipped in a liquid which had a white sediment, and which he made me believe was the vegetable root diffused in water. It gave me great pleasure to witness the efficacy of the doctor's applications. In several cancerous ulcers, the cures he performed were complete. Where the cancers were much connected with the lymphatic system, or accompanied with a scrophulous habit of body, his medicine always failed, and, in some instances, did evident mischief.
Anxious to discover a medicine that promised relief in even a few cases of cancers, and supposing that all the caustic vegetables were nearly alike, I applied the phytolacca or poke-root, the stramonium, the arum, and one or two others, to foul ulcers, in hopes of seeing the same effects from them which I had seen from Doctor Martin's powder; but in these I was disappointed. They gave some pain, but performed no cures. At length I was furnished by a gentleman from Pittsburg with a powder which I had no doubt, from a variety of circumstances, was of the same kind as that used by Dr. Martin. I applied it to a fungous ulcer, but without producing the degrees of pain, inflammation, or discharge, which I had been accustomed to see from the application of Dr. Martin's powder. After this, I should have suspected that the powder was not a simple root, had not the doctor continued upon all occasions to assure me, that it was wholly a vegetable preparation.
In the beginning of the year 1784, the doctor died, and it was generally believed that his medicine had died with him. A few weeks after his death I procured, from one of his administrators, a few ounces of the doctor's powder, partly with a view of applying it to a cancerous sore which then offered, and partly with a view of examining it more minutely than I had been able to do during the doctor's life. Upon throwing the powder, which was of a brown colour, upon a piece of white paper, I perceived distinctly a number of white particles scattered through it. I suspected at first that they were corrosive sublimate, but the usual tests of that metallic salt soon convinced me, that I was mistaken. Recollecting that arsenic was the basis of most of the celebrated cancer powders that have been used in the world, I had recourse to the tests for detecting it. Upon sprinkling a small quantity of the powder upon some coals of fire, it emitted the garlick smell so perceptibly as to be known by several persons whom I called into the room where I made the experiment, and who knew nothing of the object of my inquiries. After this, with some difficulty I picked out about three or four grains of the white powder, and bound them between two pieces of copper, which I threw into the fire. After the copper pieces became red hot, I took them out of the fire, and when they had cooled, discovered an evident whiteness imparted to both of them. One of the pieces afterwards looked like dull silver. These two tests have generally been thought sufficient to distinguish the presence of arsenic in any bodies; but I made use of a third, which has lately been communicated to the world by Mr. Bergman, and which is supposed to be in all cases infallible.
I infused a small quantity of the powder in a solution of a vegetable alkali in water for a few hours, and then poured it upon a solution of blue vitriol in water. The colour of the vitriol was immediately changed to a beautiful green, and afterwards precipitated.
I shall close this paper with a few remarks upon this powder, and upon the cure of cancers and foul ulcers of all kinds.
1. The use of caustics in cancers and foul ulcers is very ancient, and universal. But I believe arsenic to be the most efficacious of any that has ever been used. It is the basis of Plunket's and probably of Guy's well-known cancer powders. The great art of applying it successfully, is to dilute and mix it in such a manner as to mitigate the violence of its action. Doctor Martin's composition was happily calculated for this purpose. It gave less pain than the common or lunar caustic. It excited a moderate inflammation, which separated the morbid from the sound parts, and promoted a plentiful afflux of humours to the sore during its application. It seldom produced an escar; hence it insinuated itself into the deepest recesses of the cancers, and frequently separated those fibres in an unbroken state, which are generally called the roots of the cancer. Upon this account, I think, in some ulcerated cancers it is to be preferred to the knife. It has no action upon the sound skin. This Doctor Hall proved, by confining a small quantity of it upon his arm for many hours. In those cases where Doctor Martin used it to extract cancerous or schirrous tumours that were not ulcerated, I have reason to believe that he always broke the skin with Spanish flies.
2. The arsenic used by the doctor was the pure white arsenic. I should suppose from the examination I made of the powder with the eye, that the proportion of arsenic to the vegetable powder, could not be more than one-fortieth part of the whole compound. I have reason to think that the doctor employed different vegetable substances at different times. The vegetable matter with which the arsenic was combined in the powder which I used in my experiments, was probably nothing more than the powder of the root and berries of the solanum lethale, or deadly nightshade. As the principal, and perhaps the only design of the vegetable addition was to blunt the activity of the arsenic, I should suppose that the same proportion of common wheat flour as the doctor used of his caustic vegetables, would answer nearly the same purpose. In those cases where the doctor applied a feather dipped in a liquid to the sore of his patient, I have no doubt but his phial contained nothing but a weak solution of arsenic in water. This is no new method of applying arsenic to foul ulcers. Doctor Way of Wilmington has spoken in the highest terms to me of a wash for foulnesses on the skin, as well as old ulcers, prepared by boiling an ounce of white arsenic in two quarts of water to three pints, and applying it once or twice a day.