An inaugural treatise on veratrine : offered to the dean and faculty of the Medical College of the State of South-Carolina / by Charles Rabe.

  • Rabe, Charles.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inaugural treatise on veratrine : offered to the dean and faculty of the Medical College of the State of South-Carolina / by Charles Rabe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    - quantity thrown into the mouth, occasioned profuse salivation. When preparing the ordinary ointment, a cat in my room licked the spatula used in the process, and was instantly attacked with vomiting and purging. Active salivation was observed to last for twenty minutes. The animal recovered. I have often treated cats in the same way, and the discharge of large quantities of saliva invariably followed. The tincture of Veratrine (gr. iv. ad. ?i. alcoh.] was injected into the mouth of a kitten two months old. Salivation came on immediately, attended with evacuations of the alimentary canal. I then threw one drachm into the rectum, and shortly tetanic con- vulsions supervened, so severe as to throw the animal from the table upon the floor. It died in half an hour from the time of the first injection. On dissection, the heart was not deprived of its vitality, for it contracted for several minutes after opening the body, so that death must have begun in the nervous centres. The brain did not present any striking appearances. The ali- mentary canal felt very rigid, and the rectum especially was much indurated—circumstances which, on subsequent observation, did not occur in healthy kittens. The mucous membrane of the rectum and colon was found injected, and violently inflamed at the part where the Veratrine had come in contact with it, evi- dently spreading upwards. Magendie, on the strength of similar observations, is led to say, that the effects, as regards the alimen- tary canal, are merely local; and it is only when we apply it to a very absorbent surface, as the pleura or the tunica vaginalis, that we produce the general effects so striking and terrible. In my first investigations with the remedy, I was careless in testing it by smell. An incessant sneezing lasted for about two hours, tenesmus came on, only yielding after three evacuations to a full dose of opium. The ointment of the ordinary strength, rub- bed upon the chest, produced a slight flush, a tingling sensation, and passed away speedily. I took one-eighth of a grain after breakfast, in form of tincture, in a little mucilage. It was instantly followed by constriction of the throat, flushed face, difficulty of breathing and swallowing, profuse flow of saliva, and sneezing. Vertigo and nausea soon came on, together with an indescribable feeling about the epigas- trium, which was relieved by pressure. The salivation and pain in the throat remained, and the feet were seized with icy cold- ness, extending as high as the middle of the thigh. This feeling seemed to subside by moving the limb, but returned when in an easy posture. I thought the powers of motion impaired, but this was probably owing to vertigo. These symptoms gradually sub- sided in the afternoon, but I did not repeat similar experiments. The external application of Veratrine is, according to Turn- bull, never followed by any unpleasant sequela?, which only mani- A.M.L.