The kosso or Brayera anthelmintica / [Jonathan Pereira].

  • Pereira, Jonathan, 1804-1853
Date:
[1850]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The kosso or Brayera anthelmintica / [Jonathan Pereira]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in Guy’s Hospital, confirm the favourable reports of its efficacy, which had reached this country from abroad. The physiological effects of kosso are not in general very great. Sometimes it excites a slight sensation of heat, nausea, or even vomiting, creates thirst, and frequently, perhaps usually, a gentle action on the bowels. But the latter is commonly so slight, that in a considerable number of cases, it is necessary to follow its administration by a mild purgative. It is obvious, therefore, that the tfficacy of kosso as an anthelmintic does not depend on its purgative or evacuant influence, but on its poisonous or toxic action on the worm ; in fact, it is a true vermicide. In one case, that of a woman in France, it brought away ten worms, of which one only manifested evidences of vitality, and that for a few minutes only. Kosso appears to be an effective anthelmintic in both kinds of tape¬ worm, viz., the Tcenia solium, and Bothriocephalus latus. In most of the reported successful cases, the Tcenia solium was the parasite expelled ; but in one of Chomel’s cases, the worm which was evacuated was the Bothriocephalus latus, and I am informed, that kosso has proved most effectual in Switzerland, where, as is well known, the Bothrio¬ cephalus is the prevailing tape-worm. The dealers in kosso assert that one dose will, in every case, effect the radical cure of tape-worm. But this must be obviously an error. Even supposing that it invariably destroys all the worms in the ali¬ mentary canal at the time of its exhibition, it can in no way prevent their recurrence, provided the patient retains his predisposition (which there is no reason to suppose is affected by the kosso), and is subjected to the same influence. It certainly does not radically cure the Abyssinians, since, as several writers tell us, they resort to this remedy monthly. Schimper, the governor of Adoa, says it does not com¬ pletely expel the taenia, or at least rarely does so. But, he adds, that possibly in Europeans, in whom the verminous disposition is not so pronounced as in the Abyssinians, it may perhaps act in a more com¬ plete manner. In the Abyssinians this verminous disposition is innate, and is dependent, he adds, on the regimen which they adopt. Hitherto the great drawb ck to the use of kosso has been the dif¬ ficulty of procuring the remedy, and its enormous cost. At the time when it could be purchased in Paris its price was <£1 15s. per oz., or 17s. 6d. per dose. M. Bochet d’Hericourt, the sole holder of the medicine at the present time, refuses to sell any quantity less than his entire stock, at the rate of one guinea per ounce! His nephew tells me that his uncle possesses 1400lbs. of it, which, at one guinea per ounce, will cost 22,400 guineas !!! The impossibility of effecting a sale on such terms will, I doubt not, ultimately compel the holder to reduce his demands to something approaching to reason. It does not appear that the remedy is very costly in Abyssinia. Schimper, writ¬ ing from Adoa, in Abyssinia, says that it is found in commerce at a very low price. At Yangaro (commonly called Zingaro) the sovereign has the exclusive use of it, his subjects being prohibited from employ¬ ing it; but in other parts, free trade in kosso is permitted. Consider¬ ing the frequency and rapidity of our communications with Egypt (to which place, according to Dr. Brayer, kosso is conveyed by caravans) no difficulty I apprehend will be experienced in obtaining an abundant supply of it. Its present price is a virtual prohibition of its use.