Numerous cases illustrative of the efficacy of the hydrocyanic or prussic acid in affections of the stomach; with a report upon its powers in pectoral and other diseases ... and some facts respecting the necessity of varying the doses of medicines according to circumstances, and the use of opium in diabetes / by John Elliotson.

Date:
1820
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Numerous cases illustrative of the efficacy of the hydrocyanic or prussic acid in affections of the stomach; with a report upon its powers in pectoral and other diseases ... and some facts respecting the necessity of varying the doses of medicines according to circumstances, and the use of opium in diabetes / by John Elliotson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    OF THE HYDROCYANIC ACID. The Hydrocyanic Acid can scarcely be called a new medicine. The peculiar properties of the lauro-cerasus, bitter almonds, and substances of a similar flavour, are said to arise from it, and these were long ago employed as remedies. Dr. Brown Langrish tells us that the Lauro-cerasus was frequently employed in his neigh- bourhood to cure agues,* * * § and Bergius successfully treated them with bitter almonds.f The former adds that nurses put a leaf of the lauro-cerasus in the pap when infants are troubled with flatulence. Linnaeus states that the Dutch physicians employed it in pul- monary consumptions,;}; and Baylies § boasts of its vir- tues in hectic, and gives two instances of its thinning the blood, one in a melancholic patient troubled with many * Physical Experiments upon Brutes, &c. p. 22. 1746. t Cullen, Treatise of the Materia Medica. vol. ii. p. 287. X Amoen. Acad. T. 4. p. 40. Quoted in Murray’s Apparatus Medicaminum. § Practical Essays on Medical Subjects, p. 37. Quoted also by Murray, ibidem. B