The action of neurotic medicines in insanity / by T. S. Clouston.

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

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The action of neurotic medicines in insanity / by T. S. Clouston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    potassium, drachm doses of tincture of cannabis Indica ('British Pharmacopoeia'), and a mixture containing one drachm of bromide of potassium, and one drachm of tincture of cannabis. I performed the same experiments, only instead of the medicine giving each patient four ounces of good Scotch whisky one day, and a pint of beef tea made from a pound of good beef another. I made experiments on myself and my assistant, using smaller doses, and not repeating them so often. The reason I did not keep the patients in the house in a room of a uniform temperature was, that I wished to see the effect of the various substances on them in their ordinary circumstances at that hour. Two of them I did keep in a bedroom of uniform tempera- ture during most of the experiments, but I found that this did not materially alter the results. I was not able to continue the experi- ments on all the patients continuously, on account of some of them being free from excitement on certain days, and other causes. On such days I usually substituted other patients who were also excited. They laboured under the most various forms of mania, but the element common to all of them was great excitement and disorder of the functions of the brain. None of them laboured under any bodily disease. My objects were to ascertain accurately the effect of single closes of each medicine on, 1, the maniacal excitement; 2, the appetite ; 3, the temperature; 4, the pulse, and to compare them with each other, and with the effect of a pure stimulant in large doses, and the most concentrated and nourishing of food. It is not surprising that I found the results with each drug were not the same in each patient in the successive experiments. A maniacal patient is so changeable and uncertain in his state with or without medicine, he varies so much as to the amount of muscular exercise he takes, and his whole system is so affected by these variations, that one cannot wonder at anomalies in the experiments on particular days. It was to obviate these uncertainties as much as possible that I took so many patients labouring under various forms of excitement, and repeated the ex- periments so often. In that way, I think, the results may be re- Table I. Substances given. No. of Patieuts. No. of Experi- ments. Excitement Excitement aggravated ,)(|ue(1 at first. Excitement not subdued. Tinct. Opii Potas. Bromid. and Tiact. Can. Ind. Potas. Brouiid. Tinct. Can. Ind Whisky Beef tea 9 8 7 7 10 9 29 29 13 15 21 15 2 5 0 0 13 0 19 26 7 12 11 1 10 3 6 3 7 14