“Quæ non fecimus ipsi vix ea NOSTRA VOCO.”
Mr. Battley also complains bitterly of my having inserted his preparation under so odious a motto as “Arcana Revelata fætent,” for my own part I cannot conceive any thing more appropriate to the case, viz. Arcana, these secret preparations, revelata, exposed to the air, fætent, grow fœtid. But, notwithstanding the objections which I have thus felt it my duty to offer, I am disposed to speak favourably of its mild and uniform effects, and in justice to Mr. Battley, I will further state the same opinion has been formed by a great number of respectable practitioners. The late Mr. Haden, who during his protracted illness took a large quantity of this preparation, states, in his Translation of the Formulary of Dr. Majendie, that it is devoid of exciting, and almost of constipating, properties. He made a very good substitute, “by macerating the dregs, remaining after making tincture of opium, in a solution of Tartaric acid.” The preparation formed a tolerably deep tincture, and 40 drops acted, he thought, in all respects, like 20 of the liquor opii sedativus. It neither stimulated, nor produced costiveness.
[595]. Godbold’s Vegetable Balsam. In the specification of the Patent for this nostrum forty-two different vegetables are directed to be distilled “for the purpose of extracting their essences, which are to be preserved separately and apart from each other, in syrups, and are to be mixed with the following gums and drugs, viz. Gum Dragon, Gum Guaiacum, Gum Arabic, and Gum Canada, these being dissolved in double distilled vinegar, with a quantity of Storax dissolved in Spirits of Wine and Oil of Cinnamon. It is to be bottled off, and kept three years before it is fit to be administered for the Cure of Consumption, or any Asthmatic Complaint.” It is hardly necessary to observe, that no such directions ever are, or indeed ever could be followed; in short the “Balsam” is little else than simple oxymel. It is, however, not a little curious that amongst the forty-two plants enumerated, there should be several that would on distillation yield Prussic acid, such as the Bays. We wonder that this accidental circumstance has not been noticed, and turned to account, by some of those worthy disciples of Esculapius who live by the credulity of mankind, and, as Falstaff expresses it, “Turn diseases to a commodity.”
[596]. “It is in this manner, I apprehend, that stimulating syrups will frequently remove hoarseness.”
[597]. Although it has been long known that the seeds of the poppy, and the oil obtained from them by expression, do not possess any of the narcotic properties of the plant, and that they were even baked into cakes and used as an article of food by the ancients, yet has there been in later times very considerable contention respecting the propriety and safety of using such oil. The cultivation of the Poppy for the sake of the oil of its seeds, as an article of food, has been long carried on in France, Brabant, and Germany; and more recently in Holland. At about the beginning of the 17th century, the opposition to this use of the Poppy manifested itself in France, and became so violent, that the Lieutenant General of the Police of Paris ordered the medical faculty of that city to make the strictest examination concerning this point, and they accordingly reported that, as there is nothing narcotic or prejudicial to health in the oil, the use of it might be permitted. But this decision was unsatisfactory; and popular clamour determined the Court to pass a decree in 1718, prohibiting the sale of Poppy Oil, whether mixed or unmixed! The sale of the article, however, notwithstanding this most singular decree, was clandestinely encouraged, and it gradually increased until the year 1735, when the Court issued a severe decree, enjoining the superintendent to mix a certain quantity of the extract of Turpentine, with every cask containing 1100 lbs. of this oil, of which no less than 2000 casks were consumed in Paris alone. But the secret demand for it increased until 1773, when a Society of Agriculture undertook to examine the question, and the result of their labours had the effect of reversing the prohibition, and of convincing the multitude that their fears were entirely unfounded, and that there was really no narcotic power, nor any secret mischief in the article.
[598]. As these pills are liable to become hard and insoluble by being kept, it is better to keep the ingredients in powder, and to form them extemporaneously with a little syrup.
[599]. The Pix Arida of the late Pharmacopœia.
[600]. Tar water was also at one period celebrated as an antisiphylitic remedy. M. Acharius, in his work “On the Use and advantages of Tar Water in Venereal Complaints,” enumerates the cases of a number of patients cured by this remedy alone in the Hospital of Stockholm, without any Mercury.
[601]. Dr. Mudge in the year 1782 had recommended the fumigation of balsams, in a pamphlet on the subject of his Inhaler; little or no notice however was taken of this recommendation, a circumstance which cannot excite our surprise when we consider the extravagant terms in which the pretensions of the remedy were supported. “I believe,” says he, “that much of the benefit which consumptive persons experience from sea voyages, is derived from the tar vapour constantly present on board a ship!”
A Radical and Expeditious Cure for a recent Catarrhous Cough. By J. Mudge, Plymouth, 1783.