Veterinary medicines : their actions and uses / by Finlay Dun.

Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Veterinary medicines : their actions and uses / by Finlay Dun. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    reflex action depending on the irritation excited during the solu- tion and absorption, and subsequent excretion, of the drug. The augmented secretions render the feces fluid, whilst the increased peristaltic motion accelerates their discharge. As compared with many other cathartics, aloes is tardy in its action, and apt to be uncertain, unless when the bowels are in a tolerably regular and normal state. In ordinary circumstances, however, it is a safe and sure purgative for horses. Its effects, except within certain comparatively small limits, do not increase in proportion to the dose ; and, unlike most other purgatives, it is not in large doses an irritant poison. It does not, except in very large doses, render the dejections so fluid as saline purga- tives, but appears to accelerate the peristaltic motion in a greater degree. Aloes is generally thought to have a special effect in increasing the secretion of bile; but this has never been very satisfactorily established ; indeed, though it usually relieves those symptoms which depend on defective action of the liver, bile has been sought for in vain in the feces of animals purged by aloes. It is said to produce evacuations which possess a peculiar dis- agreeable odour. (Hertwig.) The cathartic action of aloes, like that of all true purgatives, is produced with nearly equal facility by whatever channel it finds access to the blood. It may be produced by placing the aloes in sufficient quantity in the cellular tissue, applying it to any mucous membrane or other- absorbing surface, or injecting it in solution into the veins. Six drachms of Barbadoes aloes, dissolved in twenty-four ounces of water, and injected at short intervals into the jugular vein of a horse, caused nausea, frequent straining and efforts to dung, colic which, however, was only of short duration, and after twelve hours, more or less catharsis. Sometimes, when injected into the veins, it acts on the kidneys rather than the bowels. Thus Moiroud1 injected four drachms, dissolved in diluted alcohol, into the veins of a horse, and next day eight drachms, dissolved in a similar manner; but, instead of any effect on the bowels, he observed only the evacuation of a large quantity of urine. 1 Traits Eldinentaire do MatiSre Mddicale. Paris, 1843. P. 2G4.