Papers on the plant Gynocardia odorata from which the Chaulmoogra oil is obtained / compiled from various sources by Richard C. Lepage.

Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Papers on the plant Gynocardia odorata from which the Chaulmoogra oil is obtained / compiled from various sources by Richard C. Lepage. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    18/36 (page 16)
    destroyed, as was the soft palate ; the pliarynx was covered witli unhealthy ulcers; the gums were swollen and painful; deglutition was difficult, and the patient had lost his voice from chronic laryngitis. He was a confirmed drunkard, and in a state of great general debility. In fact, he had been lying about the streets of Calcutta, constantly intoxicated and squalid in appearance, for some years past. He was rejected from one of the surgical wards as a hopeless case. After recfulating the natural functions and cleanin£r the sores, he was put under a course of Chauhnoogra, a six- grain pill being given thrice daily. The only other treatment resorted to was touching the ulcers with a strong blue-stone wash, and an occasional laxative. The general health of the man improved rapidly, the sores healed, and he left the hospital stout and well in six weeks. Besides the above, I have used the Chauhnoogra in a mild case of ichthyosis, in three cases of s^-philitic rheuma- tism, in two of scrofulous enlargement of the cervical glands, in two cases of elephantiasis on the face, and in an example of leucopathia of ten years' standing, with apparent benefit. I have not leisure, on the e\'e of my departure, to furnish any details of these cases, nor were they of sufficient interest to need it. The remedy requires much more extended employment before any sound judgment can be formed of its modus operandi, and j)robable value. My object in publishing these crude notes is to direct the attention of the profession to it as a cheap, readily procu- rable, and, it may be, efficient agent in the treatment of a large and not unimportant class of cases met with in all London hospitals. I have sent a considerable quantity of it for trial in leprosy at the Kum-le-Faw Hospital, near Canton, and Mr. Piddington has despatched some of it to the Mauritius, also