Observations and experiments on the use of opium, bromide of potassium, and cannabis indica in insanity, especially in regard to the effects of the two latter given separately / by T. S. Clouston, M.D.

  • Clouston, T. S. (Thomas Smith), 1840-1915.
Date:
[1871], [©1871]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations and experiments on the use of opium, bromide of potassium, and cannabis indica in insanity, especially in regard to the effects of the two latter given separately / by T. S. Clouston, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    11/42 (page 9)
    case drachm doses of each of the bromide and cannabis have as much eftect as six drachms of the tincture of hyoscyamus. In another case half-drachm doses of each of the former have about the same sedative effect as two-drachm doses of the hitter. The experiments with single doses which I have related quite bear out my previous experience as to the decided increase in the effect of a combination of the bromide and the Indian hemp over the efl'ect of either of them used separately. Over and over again I have found that half-drachm doses of each were more powerful than drachm doses of the tincture of cannabis, or than two-drachm doses of the bromide. This seems to me one of the peculiarities of the bromide of potassium, that, combined with a sedative drug, it power- fully increases the usual effect of such drug. I cannot speak so certainly of this effect when combined with opium, but with hyoscy- amus and Indian herap it is most decided. In my own case, the effect of fifteen minims of tincture of caiuiabis along with half a drachm of the bromide was very much stronger than half a drachm of the former alone, and incomparably stronger than a drachm of the latter. In very many cases I have given a combination of the two medicines where I had been giving sometimes the one and sometimes the other previously, and I have always found that half quantities of each combmed were as powerful as double the amount of the cannabis, and more powerful than double the amount of the bromide given alone. It was one of the effects of Indian hemp specially mentioned by O'Shaughnessy in his first experiments with the drug, that it caused an increase of appetite, and I found that when giving the bromide of potassium to my epileptic patients, it increased their appetites. Certainly no sedative or narcotine drug that I have ever used in large doses in the case of maniacal patients affected their ajipetites so little as the two given together. In doses under a drachm of each I never saw any diminution of appetite at all, and in large doses it was only after a long time that I found the apj)etite sometimes lessened. My own experience of the kind of effect produced by mixture of the bromide and the Indian hemp as distinguished from the effect of each of those taken separately when I took them myself was this. Half a drachm of the bromide produced a shght drowsiness in about an hour, which lasted for about two hours, but the effect was almost imperceptible. A drachm of the bromide produced a more decided drowsiness, and after about tw^o hours a feeling of coldness and slow- ness of the pulse. Half a drachm of the tincture of cannabis produced in an hour a feeling of confusion and fulness in the head, then a sort of preternatural acuteuess of hearing, then the impression of a great length of time between acts performed within a minute of each other described by Christison, and in two hours great drowsmess,