184 Dr. Oliver on the Prussic Acid. 
_ Some of the first experiments which I made with ts 
po agent, gave rather flattering results, although it 
ei often failed in giving the relief anticipated. Such, 
_ however was the success attending my trials, that I was in- 
duced to recommend the acid to my medical brethren. 
Several of them administered it, and with a success that oc- 
casioned a demand fer the article in the shops. Ante 
of this the early date itself of the certificate affords a pre- 
sum 
The on circumstances which induced me to turn my atten- 
tion to the subject were, the want of success attending the 
common modes of treating the phthisis pulmonalis, and my 
having a very near relation in. the incipient stage of that 
disease,* I had read in Murray’ s Apparatus Medicarninum, 
sun 
pro infusione in morbis pulmones depascentibus (utor vero 
te propiit ejusdem verbis) Phthisis eundem intellexisse, €X 
ibro ejus Me Materia Medica colligo, in quo hic morbus 
significatur.” Some other hints to “the same purpose, i 
other writers, are to be found in the same article. The ex 
periments made with the aqua lauro-cerasus, by Dr. Brow 
rat eke had also suggested to my mind the probability of 
the laurel proving a useful medicine. About the year 1810, 
a small ay “of laurel-water came into my possession ; 
I prescribed it in the case of my relation with good effect, 
and likewise in the case of one other patient laboring under 
the same disease. But my laurel-water became exhausted 
in a short time. I then applied to the late Professor Bar- 
ton of Philadelphia, to ask his aid in procuring for me some 
of the leaves of the prunus lauro-cerasus. He very kindly 
“sent me a small quantity which was all that could then be 
procured. A tincture was made of the leaves, which, on 
Arial, yielded the same result : as the bac os sal mate But here 
have spoken of the dtieiss as ag in the incipient e, ag the ex- 
m was not parebens But a reais — paaees oa 
jan pronounced that the eee eon ike darporate pb be: 
