On the 23d she complained of thirst, and thought the discharge of urine not so copious as on the preceding days, therefore the saline julep was continued every fourth hour, with the addition of thirty drops of the following medicine:
R. Aceti scillitic. ʒvi.
Tinct. aromat. ʒii.
Tinct. thebaic. gutt. xx. m.
The bowels have been kept open from the 19th, by the occasional use of emollient injections.
On the 24th the legs were much swelled again; she complained of languor and a degree of nausea. The discharge of urine increased a little since the 23d. Her pulse was low and her tongue white. The urine, which had been rendered clear by the infusion of Foxglove, now deposited a whitish sediment.
On the 25th her appetite began to return, the swelling of the legs diminished, and she thought herself much relieved. The urine was considerable in quantity, and clear.
On the 26th she was thirsty and languid. The swelling was removed; the quantity of urine discharged in the last twenty-four hours was about a pint. She continued to mend from this time, and is now in good health.
A giddiness of the head, more or less remarkable at times, was observed to follow the use of the Foxglove, and it lasted nine or ten days.
This is the second time that I have relieved this patient by the infusion of Foxglove. I used the same proportion of the fresh leaves the first time as I did of the dried ones the last. The violent vomiting which followed the use of the infusion made with the dried leaves, did not take place with the fresh though she took near a pint made with the same proportion of the herb fresh gathered.
REMARKS.
The above is a very instructive case, as it teaches us how small a quantity of the infusion was necessary to effect every desirable purpose. At first sight it may appear from the concluding paragraph, that the green leaves ought to be preferred to the dried ones, as being so much milder in their operation; but let it be noticed, that the same quantity of infusion was prepared from the same weight of the green as of the dried leaves, and consequently, as will appear hereafter, the infusion with the dried leaves was five times the strength of that before prepared from the green ones. We need not wonder, therefore, that the effects of the former were so disagreeable, when the dose was five times greater than it ought to have been. But what makes this matter still more obvious, is the mistake mentioned at first, of two tea spoonfuls only being given for a dose. Now a tea spoonful, containing about a fourth or a fifth part of the contents of a table spoon, the dose then given, was very nearly the same as that which had before been taken of the infusion of the green leaves, and it produced precisely the same effects for it increased the urinary discharge, without exciting the violent vomiting.