A treatise on that affection of the joints denominated arthritis or gout / by Lewis Gout.

  • Leese, Lewis.
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on that affection of the joints denominated arthritis or gout / by Lewis Gout. 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.

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    its rendering him permanently unfit for the active duties of his profession; he ventured on the use of if removed, is instantly renewed. This milky juice is slightly acrid, but does not blister the skin. It gives to the tongue a pe- culiar earthy taste, and a sensation of coldness, which continues about half an hour. The dried slices are cream-coloured, firm, and friable ; and though previously circular, are now concave on the side, which at a later period would embrace the offset. To the taste they are slightly bitter, and if retained in the mouth, diffuse a general warmth over the fauces. During the autumn and winter, the characteristic cold and earthy taste of colchicum becomes continually less and less dis- tinct, and in the spring it is entirely lost; and slices of the root dried at this time, instead of remaining firm and friable, shrivel up like leather exposed to fire. Slices dried in June, when the offset is still very small, become concave on the side which forms it, lose seventy-five per cent, of their weight, and become shrivelled and porous. Preparations of Colchicum. — On the 1st of August, 1823, the following operations were commenced on forty-two pounds of colchicum roots:— The roots were bruised, and yielded, under heavy pressure, twenty pints of a drab-coloured creamy juice. This juice was slightly acrid and bitterish, and impressed the whole mouth with its cold earthy taste. It had also a peculiar earthy and slightly pungent odour. After standing twenty minutes in a Wedgwood dish, the juice had deposited a copious white sediment. The su- pernatant liquor having been decanted, the sediment was firm, unyielding, dry under pressure, and minutely granular, and was with difficulty removed from the bottom of the vessel. After re- peated washings with cold water, it was dried, and weighed two pounds twelve ounces. It consisted almost entirely of starch, and tasted slightly of colchicum.