OF MADRAS.
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asthma, from ten to fifteen minims, three or four times in the twenty-
four hours. Of the decoction, from two to three ounces, three times
a day.
European Drugs for which they may be substituted.—The seeds for
squill, senega root, ammoniacum, balsamum tolutanum and other; the
oil for jalap, rhubarb, castor-oil and squill; and the root for Jamaica
sarsaparilla.
Remarks.—The seeds are small, round, hard, striated, dark brown
and about the size of a small mustard-seed. They are full of oil, and
if crushed on paper, they break with a noise and leave on it an oily stain.
Their kernel is white, minute and albuminous. The fixed oil yielded
by these seeds on expression is quite tasteless with little or no smell,
and its color is pale amber, or yellowish or reddish-brown. The oil
gives an orange red color with nitric acid. The root is small, fusiform,
brown externally, pale-white internally and odorless with a slight
bitterish taste.
I have used the seeds of A. mexicana in many cases and found
them to possess all the medicinal properties I have described above.
The largest dose of the seeds I have used is two drachms and a half,
and even in so large a dose as this there was nothing in their action to
lead to the suspicion of their being a narcotic as is generally supposed.
It is difficult to account for such supposition without suspecting that
some other seeds were confounded with them. I have, therefore, des-
cribed the latter as minutely as I could, and if due attention is paid to
this description there will be no difficulty in distinguishing them from
all other seeds. Although the doses of the seeds of A. mexicana are
very large, yet this is no disadvantage, because they are always used
in emulsion, which is tasteless and can be sweetened, if necessary, as
already explained. The emulsion is much liked by the patients.
There is also a great difference in opinions as to the action and
dose of the oil of Argemone mexicana. Some say that thirty minims
of it act as an efficient cathartic, while others consider it to be quite
inert and incapable of producing any purgative effect in " ounce doses."
I have got this oil prepared three or four times in my own presence and
tried it in many cases. The former opinion is quite correct, and with
regard to the latter, it is necessary to say that the oil, so far from
being inert in " ounce doses," is unsafe in more than forty minim
doses, and produces a dangerous hypercatharsis when the dose is in-
creased to one drachm. If the oil is fresh, its average dose is twenty-
five minims; and if old, thirty-five. It is a good drastic or hydragogue
cathartic in such doses, and generally produces from 5 to 12 motions.
Its advantage over jalap, rhubarb, castor-oil, &c., is the smallness of its
dose; and over the croton oil, its freeness from unpleasant, nauseous
and acrid taste. Its disadvantages as a purgative are, firstly, that its
action is not uniform even in its average dose, which produces more than
fifteen or sixteen motions at one time, and only three or four at another;
and, secondly, that it is generally accompanied by vomiting at the com-
mencement of its operation. Though the latter is not severe, yet it is a
very unpleasant effect in a purgative medicine. Hy percatharsis from
the use of this oil is not generally attended with great debility and
other dangerous symptoms frequently observed under a similar condition
from croton oil and some other purgatives.