TART II.

Materia Msdica.

291

efficacious in flatulent colic with hernia. As a remedy in luesvenerea opium is still relied on by some foreign practitioners,but the idea of'its anti-venereal powers has been justly explodedin this country; and it is properly regarded only as an usefuladjunct to mercury in this disease: " by diminishing the sen-sibility of the stomach and bowels, it prevents many of thoseinconveniences which this mineral is apt to excite in the primasviae, and allows it to be more easily introduced into the sys-tem.'" In short, in all cases where the irritability is mor-bidly increased, and where it is of importance to lessen pain,and procure sleep, opium is undoubtedly the most valuablearticle of the materia medica.

Opium is contra-indicated in all morbid states of the bodywhere a strong inflammatory diathesis exists; in pulmonaryaffections, when the cough is dry and hard, and the expecto-ration difficult and scanty; and if not hurtful, its use is atleast doubtful in mania, in which it generally occasions rest-lessness instead of procuring sleep.

Externally used, opium is almost as efficacious as when it istaken into the stomach, and produces its narcotic effects with-out affecting the head or producing nausea. It is applied inthe form of frictions, either combined with oil, or with thecamphor liniment, or in the form of tincture: thus applied, itmay be used in all the diseases above enumerated. We haveoften seen its good effects in colic; and have also witnessedits singular efficacy in symptomatic trismus, when rubbed onthe jaw, and applied to the scrobiculus cordis by means ofpledgets soaked in the tincture. A piece of solid opium stuffedinto a carious tooth relieves the pain of tooth-ach; and intro-duced into the rectum, either in the solid form or dissolvedin water as an enema, it affords relief in tenesmus, in painfulaffections of the prostate gland, and in spasmodic strictures.A weak watery solution of it also is an useful adjunct to injec-tions in gonorrhoea, and to collyria in ophthalmia; and thevinous tincture dropped into the eye removes the suffusionwhich often remains in that disease after the inflammation hasbeen subdued; and restores the tone of the diseased organ.The aqueous solution also lessens the pain of open cancer, whencloths soaked in it are laid over the sore.

Opium is exhibited either in substance as a pill, or under theform of tincture. It is necessary to avoid combining it withsubstances which decompose it ,• and therefore solutions ofoxymuriate of mercury, acetate of lead, sulphates of zinc, iron,and copper; of the carbonates of alkalies, lime water, infusionof galls, and infusion of yellow cinchona bark, are incompati-

1 Peofttm'i Obicroativtib, 3fe. o,. Afiides-'itstd in the C:ire of Lilts fcnena, p. 60.

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