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Properly diluted and mixed with sugar, it forms the delightful refrigerant known as lemonade. Lemon-juice is the best known remedy for scurvy. Syrup of citric acid consists of 120 grains of powdered citric acid and four minims of oil of lemon rubbed up with a fluidounce of syrup, and afterwards dissolved in a pint and fifteen fluidounces more of syrup, at a gentle heat. Lemon syrup, which is pleasanter, is made by dissolving 48 troy ounces of sugar in a pint of strained lemonjuice mixed with a pint of water, at a gentle heat. TARTARIC ACID is the acid of grapes, and is extracted from tartar, or crude cream of tartar. It is a white crystallized solid, in the form of irregular six-sided prisms (C,H,O10+2HO), and is found in the shops as a fine white powder. It is soluble in water and alcohol. Being cheaper than citric acid, it may be used as a substitute for that acid. It is employed in making soda and Seidlitz powders. Tartaric acid yields a precipitate (cream of tartar) with a solution of carbonate or other neutral salt of potassium, while citric acid yields none.

ORDER VIII.-SPINANTS.

Under the term Spinants or Spastics, are comprised medicines which are employed to excite muscular contraction. Of this class, the most important articles are vegetable substances containing the alkaloids strychnia and brucia, which are employed therapeutically in torpid or paralytic conditions of the muscular system-and ergot, which is used to excite muscular contractions of the uterus.

NUX VOMICA.

Strychnos Nux vomica, or Poison-Nut (Nat. Ord. Apocynacea), is a middling-sized tree of the coast of Coramandel and other parts of India, which bears a round, smooth berry, the size of a pretty large apple, of a rich orange colour, and containing numerous seeds embedded in a juicy pulp. The SEEDS

are the officinal portion; but the bark also is poisonous, and is known as false angustura bark, from its having been confounded with angustura bark. The seeds are round, peltate, less than an inch in diameter, nearly flat, or convex on one side and concave on the other, and surrounded by a narrow annular stria. They have two coats: a simple, fibrous, outer coat, covered with short, silky hairs, of a gray or yellowish colour, and a very thin inner coat, which envelopes the nucleus or kernel. This is hard, horny, of a whitish or yellowish colour, and of very difficult pulverization. The seeds have no odour, but an intensely bitter taste, which is stronger in the kernel than in the investing membrane. They impart their virtues to water, but more readily to diluted alcohol, and contain two active alkaloid principles, strychnia (which is officinal), and brucia, both of which exist in combination with an acid called strychnic, or igasuric; another alkaloid, termed igasuria, much more soluble in water than the two first named, has been lately extracted from nux vomica.

Physiological Effects.-In very small and repeated doses, nux vomica has a tonic and diuretic effect, and sometimes operates slightly on the bowels and skin. In somewhat larger doses, the stomach is often disturbed; and in still larger doses, the muscular system becomes disordered. A sense of weight and weakness in the limbs, and increased sensibility to external impressions of all kinds, manifest themselves, with depression of spirits and anxiety; the limbs tremble, and slight convulsive movements of the muscles appear. If the medicine be continued, convulsive paroxysms of the whole muscular system ensue, with erotic desires, painful sensations in the skin, and occasionally eruptions: the pulse is not much affected. In paralytic patients, the effects of the medicine are principally observed in the paralyzed parts. When taken in excessive doses, it produces tetanus, asphyxia, and death. There is no chemical antidote, unless, perhaps, tannic acid, and the ioduretted iodide of potassium; after evacuating the stomach, opium, conium, ether, chloroform, extract of Indian hemp, camphor, tobacco, calabar bean, &c., may be exhibited, as physiological antidotes. སཾ ཨིཏཾ ཝཱ། 1N ཏི ན དྭཱིསི

Medicinal Uses.-This medicine is our chief resource in torpid or paralytic conditions of the motor or sensitive nerves, or of the muscular fibre. When, however, paralysis is the result of inflammation of the nervous centres, it is injurious, and accelerates organic changes. It is most beneficial in those forms of paralysis which are independent of structural lesion, as lead palsy or paralysis from drunkenness. In paralysis, arising from cerebral hemorrhage,--after the absorption of the effused blood, and the paralysis remains, as it were from habit,-the cautious employment of nux vomica is often attended with advantage. In amaurosis, free from cerebral complication, it is very useful; and it is occasionally serviceable in other nervous affections. It has also been found beneficial in chorea, constipation, dysentery, cholera, diarrhoea, impotence, incontinence of urine, and spermatorrhoea; and in small doses it has been used with excellent effect as a general tonic, and as a stomachic in dyspepsia.

Administration.-Dose of the powder, gr. ij or iij, in pills, several times a day, and increased till an effect is produced; of the extract (alcoholic), gr. to gr. j, to be repeated and increased; of the tincture (eight troy ounces to alcohol Oij), gtt. v to xx, and this is sometimes used as an embrocation to paralyzed parts.

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STRYCHNIA (CHN2O,) is obtained by the following process: Nux vomica is digested and boiled in water acidulated with muriatic acid, and the resulting muriate of strychnia and brucia is decomposed by lime. The strychnia is separated from brucia and impurities, by boiling alcohol, from which it is deposited when cool, the brucia being left in solution. It is then converted into a sulphate by the addition of diluted sulphuric acid, next decolourized by purified animal charcoal, and again precipitated by solution of ammonia. Thus obtained, it occurs as a white or grayish-white powder, (but may be made to crystallize in the form of white, brilliant, rhombic prisms), of an intensely bitter taste, almost insoluble in water, slightly soluble in cold alcohol, but readily soluble in boiling alcohol. The usual test for strychnia is the bichromate of potassium, which added to a

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solution of strychnia in concentrated sulphuric acid, produces a violet colour, which after a time changes to wine-red, and then to reddish-yellow. A still more delicate test is a solution of permanganate of potassium (gr. 1) in sulphuric acid (grs. 2000). The effects of strychnia are similar to those of nux vomica, but more violent; its local action is that of an irritant. It is employed for the same purposes as nux vomica, and should be given in very minute doses, as gr. to to begin with, to be gradually increased and repeated.

The salts of strychnia may

be also employed in the same doses, but they are more soluble, and therefore more active. For endermic use, gr. 2 of strychnia may be used.

STRYCHNIE SULPHAS (Sulphate of Strychnia), is made by dissolving a mixture of strychnia in distilled water, with diluted sulphuric acid, and evaporating. It occurs as a white salt, in colourless, prismatic crystals, efflorescent, odourless, very bitter, readily soluble in water, sparingly soluble in alcohol, and insoluble in ether. It responds to the tests for strychnia, and may be used for the same purposes, and in the same doses.

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IGNATIA.

The SEED of Strychnos Ignatia, or St. Ignatius' Bean, a tree of the Philippine Islands, contains a large proportion of strychnia, and possesses medicinal properties analogous to those of nux vomica. It is used in this country in the form of extract (alcoholic), which may be given to fulfil the same remedial indications as extract of nux vomica, in the dose of half a grain to a grain, three times a day.

TOXICODENDRON (Poison-Oak). The LEAVES of Rhus Toxicodendron, or Poison-Oak (Nat. Ord. Anacardiaceæ), an indigenous shrub from one to three feet high, and other species of Rhus, possess properties somewhat analogous to those of nux vomica, and have been employed with success in paralysis. They contain a peculiar acid principle (toxicodendric acid), to which their poisonous and medicinal activity is due. Dose, gr. j to gr. iij, or more, to be repeated and increased.

ERGOTA-ERGOT.

Ergot is now known to be a fungus growing from the diseased. ovary of Secale cereale, or Rye, (Nat. Ord. Graminacea). The U. S. Pharmacopoeia styles it the SCLEROTICUM of CLAVICEPS PURPUREA, replacing the grain of secale cereale. Its predisposing cause is unknown, and it is not peculiar to rye, many other grasses being subject to it, as abortion in grazing animals has been frequently produced by their eating grasses affected with ergot. The ergot usually projects out of the glum or husk of the plant, beyond the ordinary outline of the spike or ear. It should not be collected until some days after it has begun to form, as it is thought not to possess full activity until about the sixth day of its formation. As found in the shops, it consists of cylindrical or somewhat prismatical tapering grains, curved like the spur of a cock, of a purplish colour externally, and of a yellowish or grayish-white colour within. Its smell is peculiar and nauseous; its taste is at first faint, but becomes bitterish, acrid, and disagreeable. It yields its virtues to water and alcohol, and does not keep well, being liable to the attacks of a minute worm.

Numerous analyses have been made of ergot, but there is still uncertainty as regards its active principles. The oil of ergot is not now believed to be, when pure, the medicinal constituent. A volatile alkaloid, termed secalia (identical with prophylamia,* the odorous principle of pickled herring), exists in ergot; and, lately, two fixed alkaloids (ergotina and ecbolina), have been discovered, in combination with an acid termed ergotic. Ecbolina is believed to be the principle which causes uterine contraction, half a grain of it having been found to produce the effect of 30 grains of ergot.

Physiological Effects.-The effects of ergot, in medicinal doses, are most conspicuous on the female system, in which it excites powerful contractions of the uterus. After labour has

* Prophylamia (CH,N) has been used in rheumatism and neuralgia, in doses of two drops in some aromatic water, every two hours.

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