Report made to the Academy of Medicine on the use of Gélis and Conté's dragees of lactate of iron / by a committee composed of Drs. Fouquier, Bally, Bouillaud, reporter.

  • Académie de médecine (France)
Date:
[1865?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report made to the Academy of Medicine on the use of Gélis and Conté's dragees of lactate of iron / by a committee composed of Drs. Fouquier, Bally, Bouillaud, reporter. 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.

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    The results already obtained by Drs. Andral, Bouillaud, Fouquier, Bally, and other eminent practitioners, soon gave a definitive sanction to the use of this medicinal agent, the advan- tages of which appear to be indispu'able. We give the results of the experiments made with the new medicineatLa Charitd, under our own observation. The Lacfate of Iron was administered to patients in that hospital in the shape of Dragees. It unitesthe advantage, always valuable in a medicine to be taken inwardly, of being ex- cessively easy of solution, offering to the digestive organs a salt with iron for its basis, the acid of which is found diffused in large quantities in the gastric juice, and in some other fluids of the system. The almost complete insolubility of subcarbonate of iron, causes it to pass through the whole length of the digestive tube iill it is ejected with the excrements, which it colors red, without hawng itself lost any of its properties; and from the difficulty of assimilation pe- culiar to this substance, results the unfortunate necessity of administering it in very large doses, which are successively offered to the digestive powers, merely to exhaust them, as the result is the absorption of only a few atoms. This is not the case with Lactate of Iron, which, being easily absorbed, requires only to be administered in small quantities. Dr. Bouillaud never prescribed more than 20 grains in twenty-four hours, and Drs. An- dral and Fouquier not more than 12, that is to say 12 Dragees, because each of them con- tains 5 centigrammes (1 grain) of Lactate of Iron. The treatment is generally commenced by c Dragees, 30 centigrammes (G grains), in the twenty-four hours, the dose being increased every two days. We shall only say one word concerning the sulphate of iron, which, being easy of solu- tion, might be brought forward as a rival of the Lactate. But the inconveniences which result from the use of it are known, especially the pains in the stomach to which patients who take it are exposed. The following facts will show the efficacy of Lactate of Iron. Chlorosis; dysmenorrhoea; rapid recovery.—Ur. Andral. In the ward of Sainte-Marthe was a patient named Josephine L..., aged 17 years, hair chestnut color, temperament lymphatic, menstrual discharge commenced at 10, entered the hospital 23rd of November. Sevtn months previously she observed a progressive deterio- ration of her health in consequence of a fright she had experienced; her face lost its color, her courses, which previously appeared high colored and abundant, became less in quantity, without color, and irregular; appetite diminished ; palpitations and shortness of breath after the least exercise, and even while sitting still; humming in the carotid arteries; puffing at the first sound of the heart. Twenty days after her admission, she took Lactate, of Iron in a dose of 6 grains (6 Dragees daily). The tenth day her appetite increased; the Dragees were gradually increased to 7,10 and 12. The improvement continued. The 6th January, the usual time of her menslrual discharge, it appeared, and was abundant and deep colored for four days. The patient is still in the hospital, and we were enabled to ascertain that the noise of the heart accompanying the first sound had ceased, and that there remained only a scarcely audible noise in the left carotid artery. Chlorosis; recent amenorrhoea.—Tiv. Bouillaud. Eliza B... was admitted to Ste. Madeleine’s ward on the 28th November. The patient xvas a cookmaid, aged 18, constitution lymphatic, delicate, light colored hair; had been in Paris one year; menstrual discharge commenced in her fifteenth year, but was never regular. She had been affected for some time with leucorrhcea, and was subject to headache and suffocation; the menstrual discharge had not taken place for more than a month. Was seized with pains in her right leg six days ago, and three days afterwards it began to swell up to the knee. Actual state; complexion pale, cheeks slightly colored; want of appetite, preference for food of acid taste, stools in the usual slate, humming in the carotids, noise of the heart normal; general weakness, shortness of breath and palpitation after the least exercise; subcutaneous veins almost invisible; pulse slow and fluctuating; noise of the heart distinct in the substernal aorta. Six Dragees of Lactate of Iron and Spa water prescribed.