OLD WOMEN'S REMEDIES. (Continued from page 615, October number.)

A

REMEDY for lumbago and rheumatism, which our great-grandmothers highly prized, was the application of a hot smoothing iron to the parts affected. It was applied by rubbing it over a doubled piece of flannel on the course of the back, as hot as the iron could be borne-a clumsy remedy, but no doubt it eased the pain for the time being. Most of us can remember as children the simple and homely method of stopping the bleeding of the nose by putting a key down the back; but perhaps few of us stop to think that this "cure" was probably as old as the age of keys, or that the key operated upon the olfactory nerves by sympathy, and contracted the openings of the blood vessels.

To stand upon cold stone was recommended for cramp in the legs; presumably the patient had to be barefooted, and he had the consolation of knowing that if it did not cure the cramp it would probably give him a cold. A remedy for recent burns consisted of the application of ink, the idea being that the copperas, contained in the ink of those days, acted as an astringent. For a similar reason, ink was considered a useful application for warts.

Early last century sea-water was in vogue as a purgative-but this is a remedy few people would care to try nowadays. Swallowing tobacco smoke was reputed to be a cure for worms—a remedy of very doubtful value.

Before the introduction of the modern corn paint and plaster a popular treatment consisted in binding on the corn a leaf of house-leak, after having well soaked the feet in warm water. This sounds too easy a remedy to be much

good, but it may be worth trying, if only to see whether the simple folk of a century ago knew what they were about; should the treatment be ineffective there is always the possible explanation that the corns of today are not the corns of our forefathers!

Watercress is supposed to be possessed of many virtues; one of its reputed properties was that it removed scorbutic blotches. The method of using it was as follows: Take two or three handfuls of watercress, bruised, to a quarter of pint of water, and simmer them over a slow fire until they assume a green color. Bathe the hands or parts affected with this liquid, and rub it in dryly by the fire. Afterwards moisten the parts with a little simple ointment, to prevent the glutinous portions of the milk from cracking or chapping the skin when in a drying state. This certainly had the merit of being harmless, if not beneficial.

Two rather doubtful methods of dressing fresh wounds were formerly in common use; one was to dress the wound with soap and sugar and the other to place chewed herbs over the cut, but few of us would like to try either of them in these days of antiseptics.

A rustic remedy for toothache which is said to have succeeded often, was to apply a roasted turnip to the ear. This was especially recommended when the pain extended over one jaw and side of the head. The turnip, of course, acted on the principle of counter-irritation, and, failing other remedies, was probably very useful in its way. Another remedy for toothache was to apply to the aching member a roasted fig; possibly this eased the pain for a moment, but one shudders to think of what the feeling was when the fig was removed. Another of these vegetable remedies the scraped

was

potato, which was reputed to be a very useful application for a burn or scald, and doubtless it had a very cooling effect. A very simple remedy for heartburn was to chew a small quantity of green tea; whether there was any virtue in it can readily be tested.

It can be said in favor of most of these remedies that they were harmless, and of all of them that they were inexpensive, while many of them had rational foundations. There were, of course, scores of others which are merely instances of the belief in witchcraft and other supernatural influences, for instance, in one small country district in England a cure for whooping cough consisted in the patient begging a piece of bread and butter from a married woman who had not changed her surname on marriage. It was necessary that she should bake the bread and churn the butter herself. It would tax our ingenuity too much to find a rational explanation of this alleged cure. The other examples of the stock remedies of our great-grandmothers cited in this article, however, are fairly typical of hundreds of others.

REFILLING THE PRESCRIPTION. Ralph Williams, in Southern Medicine and Surgery, relates a couple of pertinent instances illustrative of the mischievous possibilities attending this unwarrantable practice. Many patients feel it not only their right, but their duty to prescribe for others what has been prescribed for them without consulting their physician, and frequently without giving the physician any benefit for a favorable result and always blaming him for an unfavorable one in case the remedy did not produce as beneficial effects upon their relatives or friends as upon themselves.

This dear old lady was a grandmother of a patient for whom the author had prescribed a hair tonic containing resorcin, she herself being a decided brunette

and the old lady having a beautiful silver hair. Now, resorcin is not a good remedy to use on anyone who has gray hair, and perhaps a still worse one if it is that peculiar shade of silver in a very fine hair on a woman who was originally a blonde.

Desiring to increase the growth of her grandmother's hair and to rid the scalp of some slight degree of seborrhea, she sent her prescription to her grandmother, and a few weeks later came to me in the most tearful condition and upbraiding me for having caused her grandmother's hair to become a hideous and rather sickening yellow. Explanations, of course, of the usual character as regards a prescription intended for one person being not always beneficial to another.

Her Sister's Ointment.

In the same class with the foregoing, is the following recent and perhaps not uncommon case. Having a patient with acne and prescribing for her use with beneficial results, the author was rewarded by the family in having placed under his care a younger sister with a mild type of seborrheic eczema of the face, confined almost entirely to the region of the nose and side of the cheeks and center of the forehead. For this he gave the youngest sister a mild ammoniated mercury ointment. The result was not sufficiently rapid to suit the young lady, and she, without communicating to the author and having seen what she considered the marvelous effects of the sulphur ointment upon her sister, conIcluded that she would likewise use the sulphur. The result was, of course, the overnight appearance of about 10,000 comedos, and the early return to the office in a fearful rage of disappointment, not, however, attributing the effect to its true cause. Fortunately, the author could assure her that they would be readily removed and would quickly disappear without confinement to the house for any special length of time,

PHARMACAL DISCOVERIES OF THE

19TH CENTURY.

M. I. Wilbert, in the American Journal of Pharmacy, lists the following as the more important remedies added to the materia medica during the nineteenth century:

Morphine, discovered in 1804 by Sertürner, an apothecary's assistant, at Paderborn, Germany.

Potassium, sodium, boron, in 1807, and calcium in 1808, by Sir Humphrey Davy, by means of electrolysis.

Iodine, in 1811 by Courtois. Naphthalin, by Garden in 1816. Hydrogen dioxide, by Thenard in 1818. Strychnine, by Pelletier and Caventou in 1818.

Veratrine, by Meiszner in 1818.

Brucine, by Pelletier and Caventou, in 1819.

Quinine, cinchonine, colchicine, by Pelletier and Caventou, in 1820.

Caffeine, Runge, 1820, and independently also by Robiquet in 1821, and by Pelletier and Caventou.

Potassium iodide, introduced into medicine by D. Coindet in 1821.

Potassium bromide, by Balard, in 1826. Bromine, discovered by Balard in Montpelier, France, in 1826.

Iodoform; produced by Sérullas in 1822, but not introduced into the materia medica until about 1837.

Santonin, discovered in 1830, independently of each other, by two German apothecaries, Kahler in Düsseldorf, and Alms in Mecklenburg.

Atropine, isolated by Meins in 1831. Codeine, by Robiquet in 1832. Phenol, discovered by Runge in coal tar, in 1834.

Salicylic acid, in 1839; Kolbe, in 1873, introduced it as an antiseptic.

Chloral hydrate; discovered in 1832 by Liebig. Was introduced as a medicine by Liebreich in 1869.

Chloroform; discovered by Liebig, and also by Soubeiran in 1831. Introduced into medicine by Simpson in 1847.

Theobromine; isolated from the seeds. of theobroma cacao in 1841 by Woskresensky.

Collodion; introduced in 1853 by Maynard and Bigelow.

Physostigmine, by Jobst and Hesse, in

1864.

Resorcin, by Hlasiwetz, in 1864.

Cocaine; isolated by Gædeke in 1864. Introduced into medicine in 1884 by Koller.

Formaldehyde; discovered by A. W. Hoffman in 1867.

Pilocarpine; Gerrard and Hardy, in

1875.

Sodium salicylate; made synthetically by Kolb's process in 1875. Naphthol, 1881.

Apomorphine hydrochlorate; used in 1882. The free base had been discovered in 1869 by Matthiessen and Wright. Antipyrine; discovered by Knorr in

1884.

Acetanilid; discovered by Gerhard, has been in use since 1886.

Phenacetine, 1887.

Saccharin, 1887.

Sulfonal; discovered by Baumann in 1888.

Trional, 1893.

DEATH FROM TAKING FIFTEEN GRAINS OF VERONAL.

The British Medical Journal records a case of accidental death from veronal poisoning. The number of deaths following the administration of this commonly used sleep-producing drug has reached an appalling figure, such, indeed, that the London Lancet recommends that restrictions be placed upon its sale. In this particular instance the victim of the accident was a lawyer who had suffered for some time from insomnia and sometimes took drugs for its relief. At 3 a. m. he took fifteen grains of veronal. At 7 a. m. he became unconscious, and in spite of competent medical assistance, died about 9 a. m.