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NUX VOMICA. 139 
directly, the functions of the brain, thought they might be advantageously 
applied to the treatment of disease. He soon put his newly discovered re- 
medy boldly to the test, and his conjecture, he says, “was verified by nume- 
rous experiments made at the bed-side ;’—and he also adds, “I have seen 
the best effects follow the employment of the alcoholic extract of the nux 
vomica, not only in cases of both partial and general paralysis, but also in 
many other states of weakness of the constitution, both general and partial.”* 
Dr. Fouquier of the Hépital de la Charité at Paris, has tried the nux vomica 
very extensively, and in many cases, he says, with perfect success. He gives 
it in the form of powder or alcoholic extract; four of the former, or two of 
the latter, from two to six times a day. In half an hour after administration, 
the paralysed muscles have, in some cases, begun to evince contraction; 
sometimes, however, it produces a tremulent effect, stupor and a sense of 
intoxication—and when pushed too far, general tetanus, and other distress- 
ing symptoms. Dr. Good says, “like all other powerful medicines, in their 
first and indiscriminate application, the mua vomica appears sometimes to 
have been highly beneficial, sometimes mischievous, and sometimes to have 
produced violent effects upon the nervous system, without an important 
_ change of any kind.”+ A grain of the alcoholic extract, absorbed from any 
part of the body, or mixed with food, destroys a dog of considerable size,{ 
by inducing paroxysms of tetanus, which, by their continuance, stop the re- 
spiration, being enough to produce asphyxia; when the dose is much 
stronger, the animal appears to perish entirely, from the action of the sub- 
stance on the nervous system.|| The action of this extract on the healthy 
human body is precisely the same, and if the dose be sufficiently large, death 
soon follows with the same symptoms.{ The traces of the asphyxia, which 
* M. Magendie gives the following direction for preparing the extract :—‘Take a de- 
terminate quantity of rasped nwa vomica, exhaust it by repeated maceration in alcohol of 
40° Baume, sp.gr. 817 British, and evaporate it slowly to the consistence of an extract.” 
+ Good’s Study of Medicine. 
t The vomic nut, however, does not appear to be equally poisonous to all animals. 
Loss informs us, that a hog may eat a considerable quantity of the nuts, without suffering 
in the smallest degree. Desportes gave two very large doses of it to a goat, without doing 
it any harm. || Magendie’s Formulaire. 
§ Marcet, in his Memoir on the action of poisons on vegetable substances, informs 
us, that a bean plant, watered with a solution of extract of nux vomica, was killed in a 
day and a half.—Journal of Sciences, Literature, and the Arts, No. xxxix. p. 194. 
T2 
