A treatise on therapeutics : comprising materia medica and toxicology, with especial reference to the application of the physiological action of drugs to clinical medicine / by H.C. Wood, jr.

  • Wood, H. C., Jr. (Horatio C.), 1841-1920.
Date:
1874
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on therapeutics : comprising materia medica and toxicology, with especial reference to the application of the physiological action of drugs to clinical medicine / by H.C. Wood, jr. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    CMrurg. Remeio, April, 1871), having noticed that a blind man to whom he was giving santonin for worms recovered to an extraordinary degree his vision, has recommended it in cases of loss of optic nerve power, and Dr. Ogston has used it with more or less complete success in a number of cases. Although Dr. Brown had apparently no knowledge of it, yet many years before his experience M. Guepin and M. Martin recommended the drug in amaurosis (Ann. de Therapeut., 1862). M. Guepin believes it to be especially useful in amaurosis following acute choroiditis and iritis. Whether the use of santonin in diseases of the eye will or will not ever amount to anything, cannot at present be told ; but in the past the drug has been employed almost solely as an anthelmintic in persons troubled with the lumbricoid or rowid, worms. It is a parasiticide, killing and not expelling the worm, and consequently should, when-used, be combined with or followed by a brisk cathartic. Especial advantage is said to be derived from the joint use of it and calomel. Toxicology.—It has been denied that santonin is poisonous, and asserted that the evil results which have followed its use have been due to the mixture of strychnia with the drug. The only ground for this opinion is that in one case, through the carelessness of an apothecary, strychnia was mixed with santonin, or else was sold instead of santonin, and death resulted. Dr. Walz, in an extended examination (Jahreshericht fur Pract. Pharmacie, Bd. xv.), found that the santonin of the shops is pure; and it is inconceivable how strychnia could be mixed with it except purposely or by the grossest careless- ness. Moreover, the symptoms which have been produced in alleged poisoning by santonin are very different from those caused by strychnia, and are in close accord with those which santonin induces in the lower animals. Finally, ia some of the reported cases, seven of which are collected by Krauss, the san- tonin was examined and found to be pure. Under these circumstances, it would be absurd longer to deny to the drug poisonous properties. As to the proper specific treatment of poisoning, we are very much in the dark, as we have little knowledge of the physiological action of the drug. The stomach and bowels should be evacuated, and symptoms met as they arise. Administration.—Santonin is best administered in the form of lozenges, which, if the unbroken crystals are used, can be rendered very pleasant to the taste, so that children will eat them as candy. The dose of santonin for an adult is two to four grains; for a child two years old, one-fourth to one-half grain. Very alarming symptoms have been caused by two one-grain doses exhibited within three hours in a child eight years old (Grimm) ; in a child two and a half years old, four grains apparently came very near causing death (Dr. Berg, Wurttemherff. Medic. Con-esjjondenz- hlatt, 1862); and in the fatal case noted on page 519, only two grains were taken by a child five years old. For young infants, santonin is hardly a safe remedy in any efficient dose. When a dose of any size is given, it should not