Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 2.djvu/74

Rh minute. In four hours the pulse had fallen to 120, but still intermitted. In seven hours the dog had a natural motion. Its pulse had returned to the natural standard of 140 in a minute, and he appeared perfectly recovered from the effects of the experiment.

After three days, sixty drops of the same infusion were given to the same dog to swallow. In two hours he became languid; his pulse wiry and weak, but still 140 in a minute. In four hours the languor was less, the pulse natural. In eight hours he had a natural motion, and in eleven hours appeared perfectly recovered from this dose.

The effects of this medicine upon the dog and upon Sir Everard Home, as far as they were sensible, were very similar, but differed in degree. Sir Everard, in consequence of an attack of the gout, took sixty drops of the Eau medicinale. In two hours he became hot and thirsty. In three hours the pain became tolerable while the limb was at rest. In seven hours he had a confined motion from the bowels. There was a degree of nausea. The pulse, which is naturally 80, was lowered to 60 in a minute, with occasional intermissions. In ten hours little remained except some degree of languor, with the pulse at 70, which on the following morning was restored to its natural standard, with removal of all symptoms of gout.

If these observations shall be confirmed, says the author, we must conclude that the different kinds of substances which produce specific diseases are first carried into the circulation, in the same manner as mineral and animal poisons; and that the medicines by which they are acted upon go through the same course before they produce their beneficial effects. 



In the paper on this subject, lately read to the Society, the author hoped to establish two facts which seemed to him of primary importance; first, that this medicine can be received into the circulation without permanent mischief; and secondly, that its beneficial effects upon gout are produced through that medium; and hence the sudden relief it gives can, he thinks, be readily explained.

The criterion by which he judges of the influence of the medicine is the pulse, which he has found to be invariably diminished ten or twenty beats in about twelve hours after it is taken; and since this effect is also produced when the same medicine is injected into a vein, he was satisfied that in the former instance the lowering of the pulse depends upon its arrival into the circulation, and not upon the state of the stomach.

The author has since been induced to try whether the effects of a larger quantity injected into the veins would also correspond with those produced by an overdose taken into the stomach.

One hundred and sixty drops of the infusion of colchicum before