Uric acid as a factor in the causation of disease : acontribution to the pathology of high arterial tension, headache, epilepsy, mental depression, paroxysmal hæmoglobinuria and anæmia, Bright's disease, diabetes, gout, rheumatism, and other disorders / by Alexander Haig.

  • Haig, Alexander, 1853-1924.
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Uric acid as a factor in the causation of disease : acontribution to the pathology of high arterial tension, headache, epilepsy, mental depression, paroxysmal hæmoglobinuria and anæmia, Bright's disease, diabetes, gout, rheumatism, and other disorders / by Alexander Haig. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    opium and temporary relief from his mental misery. I have pointed out that, in accordance with this reasoning, if salicy- late of soda is given along with or in sequence to the first dose of opium, it prevents the opium causing any retention of uric acid, and then the opium rebound on the following day fails to appear or is very greatly modified. This has led me to suggest (British Medical Journal, No- vember, 1889) the use of salicylates to aid the throwing off of the morphine habit, and I know of at least one case where my sug- gestion has been followed with advantage. A medical man, who had been in the habit of taking morphine for some time since a severe and dangerous illness in which it was used, wrote to me after the appearance of my article in the journal as to the best way of leaving it off, and I suggested, among other things, a plan of using the salicylates. I have since heard from him that the plan was quite success- ful, that he was surprised how easily he was able to leave it off, and that he had no insomnia, and he ends by saying, I shall always remember you with gratitude as having shown me the way to give up the habit, and I am sure that without the sali- cylates I should only have been able to do so with the greatest difficulty. How far other cases will bear this out remains to be seen. In my own person a dose or two of salicylates after a dose of opium completely prevents what I call the opium rebound, and there is no headache, depression, or other ill-effect from the drug next day, but I have not myself tried it except after small doses of opium and morphine, not continued for more than a day or two. The action of cocaine, so far as uric acid is concerned, exactly resembles that of morphine, and like morphine it produces a first stage of happiness and well-being, followed later by a second stage of misery and depression, and cocaine has been indulged in to excess in the same way and for the same reasons that mor- phine has. In my own case cocaine soon produces severe intestinal colic, so much so that I have been unable to continue or repeat my experiments with it as often as I should otherwise have done, but there is no doubt that it affects uric acid in the same way that morphine does, and produces identical feelings of happiness and well-being—indeed, each member of the group of drugs which 3