The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-12-21
FUNNY THINGS IN MATERIA MED1cA

Weird, odd and even repulsive are some of the remedies used by the ancients ana by oriental and savage tribes of our own time, our modern materia medica contains some comical remedies and plenty of doctors who purport to be scientific and up-to-date are stiii prescribing these funny things freely.
 A familiar example is the ABS" pill or tab let-aloes or alon belladonna and strychnin- which is a staid formula in the National For mulary (official standard) and doctors pres scribe it as a remedy for constipation.
 Aloes or its resin aloin is pretty efficient cathartic--for horses and the like. l suppose some good horse doctor originally tipped off a medical friend about it.. It has one drawpacK' however though this seldom troubles the doc tor who prescribes the concoctfon; 1t tends to produce congestion of the lower bowel and or the pelvic organs of man or woman con tributng factor of hemorrhoids in many in- stances, and of various other pelvic troubles which we need not mention here. A sufficient dose of aloes aloin requires to IF hours to produce an evacuation. ..t,
 Another drawback about this favorite physic pill Is that the horse medicine is pretty harsn and like to cause considerable gripping. But the funny business that passes as iaealcai a SCI pie way; dash of belladonna (active aikaloio of which is atropin) Is added to the aioes or alon, and belladonna is antispasnodic, the antispasmodic action of the belladonna in the connection being presumed to prevent the gripping or spasmodc action of the aloes.
 To the uninitiated this might seem sensible or reasonable enough. To the student of thera- peutics 1t is as humorous as comic strip troll icy crew rushing to use the pulmotor or some such spectacuar device on victim of as- phyxiation in some dumb community where the doctors are week well as unenlightened. If bella donna works it works in two hours 1t is all through working in three hours at longest So there you are in the wee small hours with tremendous gripe from the acton of the horse medicine and no belladonna on hand to relieve it. If you must take horse medicine, you should employ a trained nurse to sit up at your bedside till about or o. clock in the morning to give you your bella donna when you need 1t. n Belladonna not only tends to relax or pre- vent spasm but it also dries up or diminishes secretions. Wef again comes our modern comic opera medical science, and adds a good dash of strychnin to the pill, the strychnin be- ing presumed to sort of whip up the secreting functions and thus correct the untoward action of the belladonna.
 Now if any reader has a large package of ABS on hand and feels he doesn't want to take 1t himself. beg him not to leave it around the house where some child may possibly get hold of it and die a terrible death from strychnin convulsions. Indeed, if our laws were intended to benefit the people and not the nostrum busi- ness. it would be impossible to sell or give away this ABS concoction without the risk of going to Jail for it. But the murder of innocents with strychnn in "tonics" and the like is still just casual incident in this country and is on a par with the intelligence of medical men who can prescribe dispense such blunderbus formulas in any case.