Manual of materia medica & therapeutics : being an abridgment of the late Dr. Pereira's Elements of materia medica arranged in conformity with the British pharmacopœia, and adapted to the use of medical practitioners, chemists and druggists, medical and pharmaceutical students, etc. / by Frederic John Farre ; assisted by Robert Bentley and by Robert Warington.

  • Pereira, Jonathan, 1804-1853.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Manual of materia medica & therapeutics : being an abridgment of the late Dr. Pereira's Elements of materia medica arranged in conformity with the British pharmacopœia, and adapted to the use of medical practitioners, chemists and druggists, medical and pharmaceutical students, etc. / by Frederic John Farre ; assisted by Robert Bentley and by Robert Warington. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Internally, cliarcoal has been exhibited in various alfections of the alimentary canal, such as dyspepsia, cardialgia, diarrhoea, cholera, and dysentery. The beneficial eliects said to have been pro- duced in these cases can only be referred to the action of charcoal on the secre- tions of the bowels ; an explanation ap- parently supported by Dr. Chapman's statement, that in dysentery, when the stools are highly acrid and oifensive, charcoal entirely divests them of the bad smell and acrimony. [I have fre- quently observed this effect of charcoal injections both in cholera and dy.-entery. Ed.] It has also been used in various other diseases, but experience has not confirmed its efiicacy. The Dose of charcoal, as ordered by different writers, varies from ten grains to a tablespoonful or more. Pharmaceutic Uses. — Wood char- coal is used as a deoxidising agent, in the preparation of sulphurous acid, bromide and iodide of potassium, and nitrite of soda. Cataplasma Caebojtis, Charcoal Poultice.—Take of wood charcoal, in powder, half an ounce; bread, two ounces; linseed meal, one ounce and a halfj boiling water, ten fluid ounces. Macerate the bread in the water a short time near the fire, then mix, and add the linseed meal gradually, stirring the ingredients, that a soft poultice may be formed. Mix with this half the char- coal, and sprinkle the remainder on the surface of the poultice. The charcoal poultice is applied to foul, unhealthy, and gangrenous ulcers, to destroy their fetor and improve their appearance. As an antiseptic, however, it is inferior to chlorinated lime and soda. Bone Black, Aniynal Charcoal, Ivory Black. (Appendix A.) The residue of ox and sheep bones which have been exposed to a red heat without the access of air, reduced to powder. Properties.—In its general proper- ties animal charcoal agrees with char- coal procured from wood. It is denser and less combustible than wood char- coal, but greatly exceeds the latter in its power of destroying colour and odour. It yields, when burnt in oxygen gas or atmospheric air, carbonic acid, like other forms of carbon. Prom vegetable char- coal it may be distinguished by its texture and appearance, as also by the properties of its ashes, which are veiy sparingly affected by sulphuric acid, and form with it a compound having a very different taste from that obtained when the ashes of wood charcoal are thus treated. Co7nposition.—Animal charcoal, pre- pared by calcining the bones of the ox and sheep, consists of the following in- gredients :— Phosphate of lime 1 gg,^ Carbonate of lime J • • • • Charcoal 10-0 Carburet of iron 2 0 Sulphuret of calcium or iron . . traces Common bone black . . . 100-0 The proportion of charcoal here stated IS certainly small. Dr. Christison states that he has found, in the animal black of this country, usually about 20 per cent, of charcoal. When bone black is calcined in the open air, the carbon is burnt off, and a whitish residue is ob- tained, called hone ash. For the ordinary purposes of the arts, as sugar-refining, crude animal charcoal answers very well, because the earthy salts in no way affect the process. But in various pharmaceutical operations the presence of phosphate and carbonate of lime would preclude its use, on account of the free acid in the liquids to be decolorised. Hence the necessity of the purification of animal charcoal. Carbo iinimalis Puri&catus, Purified Animal Charcoal. Bone black deprived of its earthy salts. PrejHiration.—Take of bone black, sixteen ounces; hydrochloric acid, ten fluid ounces; distilled water, a suffi- ciency. Mix the hydrochloric acid with a pint of the water, and add the bone black, stirring occasionally. Digest at a moderate heat for two days, agitating from time to time; collect the undis- solved charcoal on a calico filter, and wash with distilled water till what passes through gives scarcely any pre- cipitate with nitrate of silver. Dry the charcoal, and then heat it to redness in a covered crucible. In this process the hydrochloric acid dissolves the phosphate of lime, and decomposes the carbonate of lime and sulphuret of calcium, evolving carbonic acid and sulphuretted hydrogen gases, and forming chloride of calcium, which remains in solution. Officinal Characters.—A black pul-