The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-11-30
A TALK WITH A DRUGGIST.
The Penchant of Physicians for Something
New-Rise and Decadence of Remedies.


gist after the inquiring reporter. YES there's
something new every few minutes Here's list
of new remedies with high sounding names that
have been studying over. The able manufact
uring pharmacist who introduces them to the
medical profession vouches for them as being
wonderful, but it is not likely that even the
names of wo-thirds of them will be recalled two
three years hence. Doctors are death or med
ical novelties, and manufacturing pharmacists
knowing their weakness, are always giving
them something new. The more rare and high
priced a remedy is, the surer it is to find favor
with the medical practitioner. The number of
roots and leaves that within the past five years
have been torn from their primeval haunts
in South American swamps and jungles and
Australian forests is astounding 1t begins to
look if no guilty plant could escape. There is
not absolute safety even in the darkest corner of
Africa. Do you remember cundurango, adver
tised far and wide few years ago by DR.. Bliss,
of Washington City, as a cure for cancerl 1t
was wonderful because new costly and untried.
To-day it is rarely used, and the profession have
no faith in it at all In this list of new RENE
dies few of them will prove of any value at all.
Here is the Judas tree. red bud 1t was
thrown out of the pharmacop@ia in 1910, and
here it is again as a new remedy. The only
good thing know of the Judas tree is beauti-
full piece of poetry written about it, couple of
years ago, by Dr. H.. w. Taylor, of Terre Haute
California is now in high repute for wonder
full curative agencies culled from the vegetable
Kingdom. Most of them rejoice in exceedingly
ornate names Here is the yerba santa, herb of
health; yerba buena. herb of beauty; yerba
reuma, whatever that means, and many others.
Among the recent curative fancies is duboisia,
an Australian plant similar in its properties to
belladonna The Sandwich Islands furnish
plant called tonga, from which we have pro-
prietary medicine called tongaline, which has
quite run now, probably for the reason that
nobody knows anything especially about it. The
lily of the vally, which, in Solomon's time,
toied not neither did it spin, is now put into a
concentrated liquid and credited with
having control of the action of the heart.
Here's the manaca. Brazilian weed of which
little is known For that reason it is galloped
after by doctors who are willing to believe that
it is q specific for rheumatism.
"One good thing may be said of Alaska. 60
not think she has given single leaf, stalk,
flower or root to our pharmaceutical acquisi-
tons. 1t quite reconciles me to the possession
of those barren leagues of ice and solitude.
among the unpleasant remedies that are
passing out of favor is propylamin, made from
herring brine and about the most nauseous
smelling stuff in the entire scope of materia
medica. 1t is seldom used now Among the
most valuable contributions of chemistry to the
healing art is that of salicye acid, which is
used for many diseases, and in rheumatism has
superseded almost everything else. The demand
for it is great and for that reason it is fortunate
that science is able to furnish an artificial sup
ply, Kolb German chemist, now making it
from coaltar. Others make it, but all under his
patent The vegetable supply might be suf-
fcient, but it would be at such cost as not to
allow of its use in a fifth of the cases it Is now
employed in. Have you any idea of the mum Der
and Importance of the products of coal-tars
Well, there's a long list of them. Among them
is a substitute for genuine benzoic acid, which
formerly was made of hippuric acid. horse urine,
is now a coal-tar derivative That's better than
horse urine. People more squeamish about
such things than they used to be. A hundred
years ago camels stale was a popular remedy
"Guarana and jaborandi are two South Amer
lean remedies that after several years use con-
tnue in favor, Jaborandi is now extern
siyely used in the form of the
at one time claimed that it would restore hair to
bald heads. had a customer who tried it for
long time and one day, after couple of weeks
absence, he came in with a beautiful head of
hair. Did the pilocarpin do It'll l thought so
until he took the hair off and showed me it was
a wig Guarana is a nerve medicine much used
for headache 1t does not sell to the extent it
formerly did, the novelty having worn off,
"Coca is another South American plant which
rejoices in the dignifed name of erythroxylon
coca. Its active principle is the alkaloid cocaine.
The leaves of the coca have long been used by
the South American Indian mountain climbers,
who are said to do prodigious amount of work
with its aid. They chew the leaves with ashes,
which heightens the effect of the drug 1t is
wonderful stimulant, not an intoxicant. The
effect of chewing the leaves is said to be to
tard the waste of tissue so that much work
be done with little food; neither is much liquid
required under its influence. Unlike other eX-
hilarants its continued does not pro-
duce any i'll effects, and the Indians who
habitualy use it live to old age.
Upon its introduction to the civilized world,
chemists went to work and found that its viz
tues depended upon an alkaloid which they call
cocaine. This ak aloid is considered one of the
most remarkable medical discoveries of the cen
fury. In weak solution, introduced a few drops
at time into the eye, it establishes complete
anHStheSia of that organ, that the most difficult
and delicate operations of optical surgery can be
performed without pain to the patient. This is
better than chloroform. because more reliable
and without the i'll effects of the latter This is
the report we get of it from abroad where
it has been tried, and froln the most
trustworthy sources. 1t has not reached this
city yet By the aid of cocaine the pain attend
ing operations of dental surgery will be entirely
vanquished Indeed, the problem of local
an@sthesia appears to have been solved by the
discovery of this alkaloid. 1t is anticipated that
scatica will also yield to this new power. 1t is
exceedingly expensve-sixty cents grain, $288
an ounce. "a, 500 pound-but, like all other dis
Der when bromide of potash was
put up in ounce bottles and sold
at go cents an ounce 1t now sells at % to
80 cents pound Atropa, the active principle
of belladonna formerly sold at 80 cents a grain;
it now sells at that much dram. | expect the
day is not far distant when cocaine will be cheap
enough to be in active demand for domestic use
in mashed fingers and stumped toes"
-
WILL be pleased to inform the public that
II