EXTERNAL APPLICATION OF VERATRIA, ETC, 33 
duce the desired effect, all the symptoms were immediately aggra- 
vated to a great degree. 
‘The digestive functions in this patient appeared to be considera- 
bly impaired, her circulation languid, and her extremities cold, 
especially during the attack. On these accounts she was put under 
a course of laxatives, combined with blue pill, for about a week, 
which was the means of removing these symptoms, but without 
producing any change on the disease itself. As it appeared that 
carbonate of iron was almost the only medicine which she had not 
previously made use of, it was prescribed in pretty large doses, and 
persevered in until it evidently appeared to exercise no effect what- 
ever upon the symptoms; it was then given up, and about six 
weeks afterwards the Veratria was applied. 
At the commencement of one of the accessions, she rubbed over 
the eyebrow and forehead of the affected side, part of an ointment 
made with twenty grains of the Veratria to an ounce of lard ; and 
after the friction had been continued in the usual manner for about 
twenty minutes, the paroxysm was cut short. During the interval 
she was directed to apply, in the same way, an ointment made with 
morphia and hog’s lard, in the same proportions as the other, twice 
a day, in order to prevent a return of the attack, but without pro- 
ducing the intended effect, for it again made its appearance in ten 
days. 
With the view of making a decided impression at once upon the 
disease, an ounce of ointment containing forty grains of Veratria was 
ordered to be employed as before, whenever a new accession of the 
pain took place; and in a few minutes after its first application, 
there followed a great increase of the symptoms, which continued 
for about two hours, and then subsided, leaving no trace of the affec- 
tion behind, neither has any renewal of it taken place.* 
; CASE VI. 
A apy, aged twenty-six years, who has been subject to occasional 
attacks of hysteria since her fifteenth year, has also since that period 
suffered from tic-douleureux, situated in the left eyebrow and extend- 
ing itself up the forehead, in the course of the ramifications of the fron- 
talnerve. The paroxysms in general take place once a month ; but 
if the patient happen to expose herself to sudden alternations of tem- 
perature, she is almost certain of experiencing a violent attack on 
the following day, and in either instance it continues with unmitigated 
* In this instance the Veratria has completely failed in giving permanent re- 
lief. The case was drawn up about the beginning of 1834, and the patient was 
at the time in the state above described; shortly afterwards, however, the disease 
again showed itself, and has ever since continued to come onatintervals. After 
repeated examinations, I have been unable to detect any organic disease ; and 
although the other remedies mentioned in this volume have likewise been tried, 
no permanent benefit has been derived from them. Poe eee 
JANUARY, 1838.—D 4 
