POISONING FROM ESSENCE OF

EUCALYPTUS.

The Pharmaceutical Journal reports several recent cases of poisoning from essence of eucalyptus. In one case the victim was an individual who had swallowed, by mistake, two or three teaspoonfuls of the essence; in another instance a young girl took four grams of the essence, with which she was in the habit of anointing her gums. The symptoms in every case consisted of headache, vomiting, collapse, brachycardia, coldness of the extremities, and dilatation of the pupils.

ARSENICAL POISONING.

In connection with a poisoning affair in France in which Fowler's solution was the cause of death, the toxicological examination of the body was made nineteen months after poisoning, and, notwithstanding that long period of interment, most of the organs, especially the muscles, were found to be in a remarkably good state of preservation. In tabulating the results according to the decreasing content of arsenic the author found the following quantities in milligrams of arsenic per kilogram of the organ: Liver, 360; intestines, 82; stomach, 42; kidneys (mean), 28; nails, 23; lungs, 26; hair, 15; heart, muscles, 11; bone (scapula), 5; brain, 2. The brain is always the organ which stores least of the poison. Regarding the quantities of fat found, the following. percentage figures are given: Kidneys (largest), 68; (smallest), 53; stomach, 64; intestines, 62; heart, 41; muscles. 29; liver, 28; scapula, 22. The fatty degeneration of the various parts examined is manifest. It is extremely marked in the kidneys; very evident also in the liver, which, according to Gorup

14;

Besanez, does not contain more than 3 per cent of fat in the normal state.

PHARMACEUTICAL INCOMPATIBLES. Arseniate of soda, in solution with the salts of strychnia, gives a granular precipitate of strychnia, and with chlorohydrate of quinine a precipitate of quinine.

Chlorohydrate of cocaine, with chloroform water, liberates tiny droplets of chloroform. This separation may be prevented by the addition of citric acid in the proportion of 1:100, or of alcohol 5:100.

Chlorate of potassium, dissolved with alum, liberates chlorine.

Borax and bicarbonate of soda, in aqueous solution with glycerin, liberate carbonic acid gas.

Gum arabic, by reason of its reducing power, is incompatible with morphine, eserine, and adrenalin, unless its oxidizing properties are destroyed by heating to at least 100° C.

Tincture of hydrastis canadensis will hardly mix with tincture of hamamelis virg., and the same is true of tinctures of rhubarb, cinchona, colomba, etc. Tincture of coca is difficult to combine with tinctures of kola, of strychnia compounds, and of gentian. A little citric acid will clear up the mixture in all of these cases.

Solutions of antipyrine are precipitated by tannin and phenol; solid antipyrine gives an oily mixture with chloral. Acetanilid makes a pasty mixture with chloral, menthol, thymol, and resorcin; the same result follows the mixing of antipyrine with beta-napthol, salicylate of sodium, phenol, salol, and urethane; the same is true of beta-napthol mixed with camphor, phenol, menthol, and antipyrine.

A NON-IRRITATING DEPILATORY.

Depilatories containing the sulphides of barium, strontium and calcium and an inactive substance like chalk, talc or starch, are extremely irritating to the skin. This can be avoided by preparing them hot, says J. Lutje, in the Journal de Pharmacie et de Chimie. To prepare such mixtures 1.5 grams of strontium, or an equivalent quantity of barium or calcium sulphide, is triturated with 2 grams of starch and 8 grams of water and the mixture heated to boiling, with continuous stirring. Upon cooling, a creamy mixture is obtained, which is as efficacious as the mixture prepared in the cold and does not hurt the skin.

Mix with heat (hot-water bath or set out in sunshine for a few hours). Sig. Apply one or two drachms locally every three or four hours.

It is likely that this would be absorbed faster if the skin was first moistened with water before applying the mixture. This method of using quinine has many advantages over the internal use. It does away with the bad taste, something that many adults and most all children will be pleased with. When the stomach is irritated and will not retain anything this method is useful.

All physicians who have practice in a malarial district first give a purgative before giving quinine, as, when the stomach is foul, the bowels loaded and the liver torpid the internal use of quinine is not reliable in its action. Occasionally the chill time is too close at hand to first give a purgative and follow with quinine internally.

METHOD OF ADMINISTERING SAN

TONINE.

The method here referred to, proposed by Pellissier, is designed to render the intestinal tract more susceptible by changing their living conditions, and to introduce into the stomach an essential oil which will excite the acid secretion of that organ and lessen its capacity for absorbing the drug. The following is the formula, as given by the Journal de Medicine Interne:

Garlic, cut in small pieces....1 clove. Milk 1 small cup.

Cook over a moderate fire for 10 minutes, strain, and sugar to taste. The cooking robs the garlic of its acrid qualities, and makes the preparation very agreeable.

The santonine is to be given some minutes after the milk and garlic, in the following formula:

Santonine, dose according to age.
Oil of almonds

Dissolve and add:

Syrup of acacia

Infusion of oranges

5 grams.

20 grams.

20 grams.

To be taken in three doses, at 5-minute intervals. Two hours afterward give a calomel purge.

Santonine thus dissolved in oil will pass through the stomach uninfluenced by the digestive juices; the dose ingested will reach the parasites in its entirety, reserving for them the whole of its toxic activity.

DECOMPOSITION PRODUCTS OF TINCTURE OF IODINE.

When tincture of iodine is kept, a considerable amount of hydriodic acid is formed, together with some aldehyde. and acetic ether. This action proceeds rapidly during the first two months, then slowly diminishes, until ultimately, after seven or eight months, it is arrested. The iodine acts on the alcohol, forming hydriodic acid and aldehyde. The latter is oxidized by the iodine in the presence of water, forming more hydriodic acid and acetic acid. The last-named acid

combines with a portion of the alcoho! to form acetic ether. In tincture of iodine of the new French Pharmacopoeia, which contains 87.63 gm. of free iodine per litre when made, only 72.32 gm. remained after seven months, and . 15.36 gm. of hydriodic acid per litre. had been formed. A similar decomposition occurs in the tincture of the previous French Pharmacopoeia. But in this, as the iodine is present originally in less quantity, the ultimate amount of hydriodic acid formed is also less.

This base, says the author, does not become rancid or granulated and yields. a smooth ointment. It is especially adapted for the ointment of iodoform, belladonna, stramonium, iodine, chrysarobin, nutgall, sulphur and veratrin. The simple ointment of the U. S. P. should be diluted and the foregoing used in its place.

Ointment of Yellow Mercuric Oxide.

The strength of this ointment should be reduced from 10% to 2%, because a 2% preparation is generally prescribed by ophthalmologists.

Compound Resorcinal Ointment. This N. F. preparation could be greatly improved by using anhydrous wool fat instead of the hydrous, and adding the requisite quantity of water. in which the resorcinal is dissolved previous to incorporation with the base.

Tincture of Iodine.

The author suggests that this tincture can be prepared more rapidly by dissolving the iodine and potassium iodide in 35 cubic centimeters of water and then adding sufficient alcohol to make 1,000 cubic centimeters.

AN EXPLOSIVE COUGH MIXTURE.

A correspondent of the Lancet inquires what is it that makes a cough mixture having for its menstruum mist. amygdal. co. sometimes blow up, and what can be done to prevent such an untoward occurrence. He adds that the mixture consisted of squill, "hippo." morphia and nitrous ether.

A reader of the journal replies that the decomposition that may take place in mistura amygdala is well known, though no satisfactory explanation has been given. It appears not to be simply a fermentative decomposition, as is shown by the fact that it occurs in the presence of a good proportion of spirit of chloroform.

The following combinations have frequently been found, in my own experience, to explode spontaneously, especially if a full bottle be stored in a warm place: (a) Sweet spirit of nitre, syrup of red poppy, almond mixture.

(b) Paraldehyde, almond mixture. That paraldehyde and almond mixture form an explosive combination is noted in the British Pharmaceutical Codex (1907, p. 830).

TO PRESERVE TINCTURE OF

IODINE.

Reed, in the Physicians' Drug News, recommends the addition of a little sodium chloride to tincture of iodine when making to keep it from deterioration. He is in the habit of adding about one teaspoonful to a pint, and believes. thereby he gets a more permanent product.

THE CARBOHYDRATE FALLACY. Editor MEDICAL BRIEF:

During the last six years I have devoted much time and thought and experimented with a view to the elucidation of those difficult problems relating to food and its effect upon the body. In pursuit of my investigations I have fasted over a score of times for periods varying from 20 to 60 days; and when breaking these fasts I have eaten different articles of food singly, watching their effect upon the living blood, the urine, the feces and the tongue.

Such experimentation was undertaken with several objects in view:

(1) To ascertain as far as is practicable what are the possibilities of health; that is, the resisting power of the organism to disease, exposure, fatigue, starvation, and an unwholesome environment.

(2) To endeavor to find a standard of measurement for the purpose of measuring such powers of resistance.

(3) To discover the minimum amount of protein and carbohydrates upon which perfect physical efficiency might be maintained.

(4) To ascertain the real effect of any given food upon the organism.

The results accruing from these experiments have been a surprise to me. I believe they would be of interest, and the conclusions I have drawn therefrom of utility, to all engaged in the practice. of medicine.

The human organism has been likened to a self-repairing steam engine which needs a given quantity of food for the production of so much energy; and a certain proportion of protein for the replacement of the wear and tear of tissue. But such a similitude seems to

me, if I may humbly express an opinion, somewhat misleading. For one reason our digestive and assimilative capacity often varies to the degree that what would be, or might be, conducive to the production of heat and energy in one case, would be provocative of disease and death in another; and the quantity of carbohydrates that people of similar habits and equal body weight find it necessary to consume often varies to a great extent.

May I offer, what appears to me, a better and a more useful analogy?

The organism may be likened to a building. The cells of the body form the bricks of the building; the blood is the clay which goes to the formation of these bricks; the digestive organs are the clay-mixing and making machinery; the food we eat is the raw material for the production of this clay; and fresh air and sunshine form the mortar which bind these bricks together. Obviously, for the upbuilding of a body of a highly enduring type, there must be the best quality of brick-forming material, strong and healthy clay-mixing machinery, a wise discrimination in the choice of food which goes to form this clay, and a sufficiency of mortar to bind these bricks well together.

It will be noticed that this analogy ignores the question of the quantity of carbohydrates; and the objection wi naturally be raised that a building is stationary, whereas the body moves and expresses energy. Yet the experiments I have undergone have led me to the conclusion that we are wont to exaggerate the importance of carbonaceous food for the production of heat and the emission of energy. And I am impelled to this conclusion by the fact that on the fortieth day of a fast, far from being

utterly lacking in energy, as theoretically I should have been, I yet had sufficient strength to cover a distance of 60 miles on foot-in fact, with greater ease and enjoyment than I am able to do when eating the quantity of carbonaceous food considered essential for our needs. Moreover, this effort involved the loss of only 5 ounces of body-weight. And I think it will be conceded that such a trifling loss of tissue hardly affords the requisite energy for the propulsion of a body weighing 130 pounds a distance of 60 miles.

I am again upheld in my deduction that the carbohydrates can not be the real source of the body's energy by the fact that when fasting, the experimental consumption of from 2 to 4 ounces of cane sugar for a few days, far from increasing energy, seems seriously to impair it, the reason for such impairment being revealed by its effect upon the blood under the microscope. Furthermore, this winter, when living for two months on oranges alone, I found that both heat and energy were maintained to the degree that a ten-mile run and an early bath in the open with the thermometer often below freezing point, were thoroughly enjoyed. During the last fortnight my weight remained stationary. And oranges, you will admit, theoretically, hardly afford a sufficiency of either proteid or carbonaceous food.

To sum up, my experiments have led me to conclude that the health of the body and the constitution we inherit, instead of being the more or less fixed quantity that we are given to think, may be strengthened to an almost indefinite extent; that such health depends primarily upon the health and vitality of the blood; and the purity and health of the blood is again determined by the health and wholesomeness of the alimentary canal in its freedom from toxinforming material. Obviously, therefore, in the cure of disease, a very essentia! matter is to improve the blood-making

processes; and experiment upon others has convinced me that such improvement is possible in all cases excepting, perhaps, those afflicted with mortal disease. I believe I can throw considerable light on the method whereby this is to be done, and place upon 1 satisfactory and scientific basis those problems the elucidation of which was the chief object of my experiment.

Being a layman, I am naturally chary of intruding within a circle for admi tance to which I have no credentials. And before presuming to offer such knowledge as I have experimentally acquired, I should naturally like to know whether it would prove acceptable. But should you be prepared to put me upon the same footing as that of any other contributor to your journal, and will communicate with me to this effect, I shall be pleased to embody the results of my investigations in as brief a series. of articles as possible.

I may mention that not only have I lived for protracted periods upon one single article of food, but I have broken my fasts with such indigestible articles of diet as lemon peel, cherries including their stones, potato skins, hard, dry corn, etc.; I have swallowed quantities of sand and as large a piece of muslin as the gullet would permit; I have passed a tube over six feet in length until the ileo-cecal valve was reached and the orifice passed, and then pumped water into the small intestine until I vomited at the mouth-peristalsis being automatically reversed. Though I do not recommend such drastic ordeals for others— they being undertaken in my own case with a view to probing into the mysteries of digestion yet the result, far from "ruining my digestion," has been to lift me to a plane of health where the use of a pocket handkerchief becomes a disgrace. As for "catching cold," this is quite impossible.

I may further add that on the first of July I commence a fast of at least two