162 On the Use of Datura Stramonium. 



and the speedy approach of death to terminate his suffer- 

 ings seemed inevitable. For a considerable time before 

 I saw him, he had been attended by my late worthy . 

 preceptor, Dr. Todd, who again had recourse to nitre, in 

 combination with calomel and tartar emetic; his legs 

 were punctured, and his scrotum washed with saturine 

 solutions. These remedies, however, had so little effect, 

 that, with the consent of the Doctor, I resolved to try the 

 effect of the Datura Stramonium. A very troublesome 

 cough had now come on, and the symptoms, upon the 

 whole, seemed rather aggravated. 



I looked upon his case as desperate, but was induced 

 to try this powerful medicine as a last resource, from 

 having read, in the New- York Medical Repository, of 

 the seeds having proved powerfully diuretic, in a case 

 where they were taken accidentally. I dried a quantity 

 of the leaves in the shade, and made them into pills with 

 crumbs of bread, and commenced giving them on the 

 27th of this month. He began with two grains, and in- 

 creased to four per day. 



31st. He had now taken twelve grains, and com- 

 plained of a slight nausea and pain in his head, but I was 

 happy to find him much better: he had discharged water 

 very freely, and his febrile symptoms had vanished. 

 Feeling himself languid, and the cough troublesome, I 

 ordered the pills to be suspended, and gave him a prepa- 

 ration of gentian and steel, with an anodyne to be taken 

 at night. At the end of three days, he began to take 

 the pills again as before, and continued to take them in 

 the same manner for about two weeks longer. When- 



