The old vegetable neurotics : hemlock, opium, belladonna and henbane; their physiological action and therapeutical use, alone and in combination being the Gulstonian Lectures of 1868, extended and including a complete examination of the active constituents of opium / by John Harley.

  • Harley, John, 1833-1921.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The old vegetable neurotics : hemlock, opium, belladonna and henbane; their physiological action and therapeutical use, alone and in combination being the Gulstonian Lectures of 1868, extended and including a complete examination of the active constituents of opium / by John Harley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    I -Qsually prescribe it alone ; if diluted, camphor water or some other antiseptic menstruum should be employed on account of the presence of albumen. As a substitute for the cataplasma conii, P.B., a piece of lint saturated with the succus, or, if heat and moisture be required, a bran poultice containing an ounce or two of the succus, may be used. Extractum Conii.—Having completed my examination of the tinctures and succus, I come now to the consideration of the extract. Very few medicines have attained so great a reputation and been so extensively employed as the extract of hemlock. Introduced by Storck, in the year 1761, as a remedy of marvellous power in the removal of almost every inveterate disease to which the human frame is subject, it soon ob- tained admission into the Pharmacopoeias; and, regarded as it is by practitioners of the present day as a powerful and useful remedy, it is still retained in almost every one of them. I myself have seen it prescribed almost daily, in doses vary- ing from 1 to 5 grains, for the last twenty years. E'everthe- less, it is to be observed that the efficacy of the extract has been questioned, and several times disproved, from the days of Storck down to our own times. The following is the formula for the extract, to the agency of which Storck attributed his wonderful cures :— ' herbse recentis cicutse quantum sufficiat. Exprimatur succus, isque recens lentissimo igne in vase terreo (ssepius agitando, ne amburatur) coquatur ad spissi extracti consis- tentiam, hoc extractum s. q. pulveris foliorum cicutse in massam pilularem subigatur; ex qua fiant pilulse granorum duorum.' ^ In some cases a few grains, taken daily for two or three weeks, were sufficient to remove, as it appeared, an old- standing disease, while in others the patient swallowed 5ij. of the extract daily for four or five months without inconve- nience. ' The extract of hemlock,' says Storck, ' is a remedy ' Essay on the Medicinal Use of Hemlock, by A. Storck, 1761, p. 14.