IPECACUANHA. 9 



until much later, although in 1672 a certain physician of the 

 name of Legras brought a large quantity from Brazil into 

 France. It was only in 1686 that its effects were first 

 made known in Paris by Jean Adrien Helvetius, who 

 visited, with the celebrated physician Afforty, a merchant 

 of the name of Grenier or Gamier. This gentleman, when he 

 recovered his health, wishing to show some mark of gratitude 

 to his physician, presented him with a portion of a new and 

 precious remedy imported from Brazil for the cure of dysentery. 

 Afforty did not attach any importance to this gift, and gave it 

 to his pupil, Helvetius. The young man experimented with it 

 on several persons affected with dysentery, and believed that 

 he had discovered a specific against this disease. Fortunately 

 for him, many gentlemen of the court, and the Dauphin him- 

 self, son of Louis XIV., were at that time sufferh 

 malady. The king, informed by his minister Colbert of the 

 secret that Helvetius possessed, charged his physician D'Aquin, 

 and his confessor Pere de la Chaise, to enter into an arrangement 

 with him for the publication of his remedy. After various trials, 

 at the Hotel Dieu, in Paris, which were crowned with the most 

 brilliant success, one thousand louis d'ors were given him, 

 and he was elevated to the first medical honours in France, 

 lie wrote a tract to describe the mode of its employment in 

 diarrhoeas and dysenteries ; and it seems that he was in the habit 

 of giving very large doses, to the amount of two drachms, 

 both as a decoction and an enema. J. B. Alliot wrote with 

 great violence against Helvetius, but his theoretical argument 

 could not shake or overturn the experience of his antagonist. 

 Sir Hans Sloane and Leibnitz contributed most powerfully 

 to establish the employment of this drug in these diseases. The 

 latter assures us, that in his time they continued to administer 

 it in large doses, but in powder instead of decoction. In this 

 country, about the first half of the eighteenth century, it was 

 supposed that a poisonous root ^as sold instead of the Ipecacu- 

 anha. Jean Daniel Gold was the first to employ Ipecacuanha in 



