13 



COLCHICINE. 



COLIC. 



the unpleasant smell of sulphur belonging to it ; to remedy this, one 

 of the gas companies at Liverpool is in the habit of using salt, in the 

 ratio of 14 Ibe. to every charge of coal ; this is said to lessen consider- 

 ably the sulphureous exhalation from the coke. From various and 

 somewhat conflicting reports of experiments made, it would appear 

 that the relative profitableness of coke and coal as fuel depends greatly 

 on locality ; the ratio between the prices of the two being by no means 

 uniform. If, on the one hand, manufacturers are trying to substitute 

 coke for coal in many fixed furnaces, railway companies, on the other, 

 are seeking to substitute coal for coke in locomotives. The experi- 

 ments require to be carried to a much greater extent, before these 

 problems can be effectually solved. 



Many patents have been obtained for peculiar methods of preparing 

 coke ; but they do not require any lengthened notice. One is for a 

 mode of applying muriatic acid to small coal, to dissolve the carbonates 

 of lime and magnesia, and other impurities, after which the roasting is 

 effected. Muriatic acid being rather a costly liquid when thus em- 

 ployed, it is suggested to employ the refuse acid from alkali works. 

 Another is for a mode of obtaining ammoniacal salts. The products 

 of combustion are to be drawn off by a blower into a flue, in which is 

 placed a refrigerator ; th,ey then pass into a condensing chamber, where 

 they come in contact with surfaces over which a stream of dilute 

 sulphuric acid is trickling ; the ammonia is taken up, and the non- 

 condensible gases allowed to pass off. 



COLCHICINE, the active principle of the meadow saffron (CW- 

 fhieum autumntilt). It was at one time regarded as identical with 

 veratrine. It is soluble in water, alcohol, and ether. It forms salts 

 with the acids, which are bitter, acrid, and poisonous. In small doses 

 it causes purging. 



COLCHICUM, tlfdiral VMS of. In a small dose, colchicum causes 

 an increased flow of urine, and more frequent evacuations from the 

 intestinal canal, and occasionally augmented secretion from the skin ; 

 in larger doses, frequent evacuations from the intestines, accompanied 

 with pain and tenesmus, and desire repeatedly to empty the bladder. 

 Still larger doses cause increase of all these actions, with vomiting and 

 sense of burning in the throat, insensibility and stiffness of the tongue, 

 escape of blood into the intestinal canal, vomiting of blood, and a 

 flow of bloody urine. Great disturbance of the nervous system is 

 likewise observed, as in other cases of poisoning with acrid sub- 

 stances. The same appearances are found in the intestinal canal, if 

 the poison be injected into the veins. Even the milk of cattle 

 which have eaten the meadow-saffron becomes capable of causing 

 death. (Vogt.) 



In a moderate dose, colchicum seems to increase the quantity and 

 improve the quality of all the secretions of the intestinal canal and the 

 collatitious viscera, especially the liver ; but it likewise exerts a 

 sedative action on the heart. Chelius says that in twelve days it 

 doubles the quantity of uric acid found in the urine, a circumstance 

 which explains it utility in gout and rheumatism. 



The diseases in which colchicum is most useful are, dropsy, when a 

 small dose is prescribed ; gout, in which larger are used ; and rheuma- 

 tism, in which its beneficial influence is first felt on the liver (which is 

 almost always disordered in these diseases), and afterwards on the 

 kidneys, from which a larger portion of uric acid is excreted, and the 

 formation of gout-stones (urate of soda) in some degree prevented. As 

 acid in the stomach renders the action of colchicum more violent, 

 magnesia is usually given along with it. The acetate and acetous 

 extract are the best forms of administratiun. 



COLCOTHAR. [Iiiox, fitsnuioxide of.] 



COLD. [CATARRH ; HEAT.] 



COLE, COLZA, a cultivated state of the Bramica napia, which 

 does not form a close head, like cabbage, but has sessile heart-shaped 

 leaves. It is cultivated for its seeds, from which an oil is expressed, 

 which is much used for burning in lamps, and in the manufacture of 

 leather and soap. 



There are two varieties of cole, one with white flowers and another 

 with yellow ; the latter is the hardiest, and consequently most gene- 

 rally cultivated. 



It requires a good loamy soil, well manured, to produce a good crop 

 of cole seed. In rich land lately broken up from pasture, or fenny 

 land newly drained, it grows luxuriantly and gives a great return. It 

 i.i On night to be a great exhauster of the soil. Half a gallon of seed is 

 drilled in rows 14 or 16 inches apart about the end of July, and left 

 thinned out until the following year, when it is cut in June and July, 

 yielding 20 to 30 bushels of seed, which is sold at from St. to 10. a 

 bushel. An oil i* expressed from it, and the refuse, a rape cake, is 

 made as food for sheep or cattle ; being worth for that purpose more 

 than it* comparatively low price, 6/. per ton, when oil cake is Wl. to 

 12/. a ton, would indicate. In a rotation, cole is considered as a good 

 crop to precede wheat. Like rape, which is another variety, it is 

 sometimes sown to be fed off by cattle and sheep on land which is not 

 so well adapted to the growth of turnips. [RAPE.] 



COLIC (from KS>\ov, colon), dolor colieut, called by Sydenham and 

 the old English writers the dry belly-ache ; a disease attended with 

 terere pain of the bowels, remitting and recurring at intervals, with 

 constipation, and without fever. The seat of this malady is conceived 

 to be chiefly, if not entirely, in that portion of the large intestines called 

 the colon, and hence its name. It arises from a great variety of causes, 



and assumes a corresponding variety of forms, many of which have 

 received distinct names ; but pain and constipation of the bowels, with 

 the absence of fever, are common to them all ; and this concurrence 

 of symptoms is essential to the medical notion of colic. 



The pain in colic often most distinctly follows the course of the 

 colon, while the morbid distension and contraction of the bowel (for 

 these two morbid states alternate with each other, and attack succes- 

 sively different portions of the intestines) often become visible to the 

 eye. The colon receives all that portion of the food which is not con- 

 verted into chyle, together with all those portions of the pancreatic, 

 biliary, and intestinal secretions, which do not form component parts 

 of the chyle. Consequently it has a considerable mass of matter to 

 carry downwards and convey out of the system. It is provided with 

 muscular fibres, very much larger than those which belong to the 

 small intestines. These fibres form three large bands, which are 

 placed in a longitudinal direction along the intestine, and which 

 produce the effect of dividing the inner surface of the colon into folds, 

 so disposed as to form little distinct apartments called cells. In these 

 cells the feculent matter, which should be slowly but progressively 

 carried downwards, is sometimes collected and closely impacted, so 

 that when at length rejected it has the form of those cells constituting 

 hard rounded balls, termed scybalce. The natural stimulus to the 

 muscular fibres of the colon is the resinous portion of the bile [BiLE, 

 NAT. HIST. Div.], together with the non-nutrient portion of the 

 aliment. It is easy then to conceive how a loss or diminution of the 

 contractile power of these fibres may occasion the constipation incident 

 to colic, attended with the retention of the feculent matter in the 

 cells of the colon ; how a suppression or an altered condition of the 

 bile may contribute t<> the same effect ; and how an acrid quality of 

 the bile and of the non-nutrient portion of the aliment may produce 

 the irritation and pain incident to colic. The colon then, both from 

 its structure and function, it is obvious must be peculiarly predisposed 

 to such an affection as that to which, from the frequency with which 

 it is the subject of the malady, it has given a name. It is perhaps 

 desirable that the term colic should be restricted to the designation of 

 a disease of a definite character, seated in the colon ; and some medical 

 writers do so limit the use of the term, though others give it a more 

 extended signification, .and with less propriety include under it 

 diseases which do not arise primarily in the colon, but in some neigh- 

 bouring organ, the colon being only secondarily and sympathetically 

 affected. 



Colic, properly so called, is attended with severe griping pains in 

 the bowels, which often follow very accurately the course of the colon ; 

 sometimes having their seat in one portion of it and sometimes in 

 another. These pains remit for a time, affording intervals of ease ; 

 but they soon return with increased violence. They are often relieved 

 by pressure, a character by which they are distinguished from pain 

 occasioned by inflammation, the latter being always increased by pres- 

 sure. The pain is usually attended with a greater or less degree of 

 flatulence. The flatus sometimes collects to such an extent as to 

 occasion a prodigious dilation of the bowels, greatly increasing the pain. 

 When the digestive process is perfectly natural, it is always attended 

 with the evolution of some portion of gas; in disordered states of 

 digestion, the quantity of gas is often very much increased. While 

 one portion of the intestine is thus preternaturally distended, another 

 portion is in a state of preternatural contraction, from the irregular 

 spasmodic action of the muscular fibres of the colon, excited by the 

 irritating cause whatever it may be which produces the disease. 

 These irregular spasmodic contractions of the colon are always present 

 when this disease is severe, and are intensely painful. The constipation, 

 which is so constant as to be a diagnostic character of the malady, in 

 often long continued and obstinate, and the consequent accumulation 

 of feculent matter is very great. To the preceding train of symptoms 

 is very frequently superadded vomiting, which is often urgent and 

 most distressing ; and in cases of the greatest severity, the action of 

 the whole intestinal tube above the seat of the disease is inverted, and 

 the faeces are mixed with the matter vomited. Occasionally there is 

 hiccough, and very often the griping pains are attended with loud 

 rumbling noises in the interior of the intestines. 



It is unnecessary in this place to enter into the details of the 

 varieties of this malady to which physicians have assigned distinct 

 names, since these varieties are merely modifications of the same 

 disease produced by different causes. The preceding account will be 

 sufficient to give to the general reader a distinct conception of the 

 nature of the malady, and of the causes which produce it ; and it is 

 only necessary to observe respecting the treatment, that the two great 

 principles on which the cure depends are the complete evacuation of 

 the intestines, and the strict regulation of the diet. It is indispensable 

 that the evacuation of the intestine of its accumulated and irritating 

 contents should be complete, and this is best effected by an alternation 

 of mild and unirritating aperients, with opiates. After the intestine 

 has been fully relieved of ite load, it is necessary to persist in a course 

 of mild aperients for a considerable time ; because the bowel long 

 remains in an irritable state, and very slight causes are apt to occasion 

 a relapse. For the same reason only the most bland and unirritating 

 substances should be taken as food ; all acid and acrid matters in the 

 solid and all stimulating matters in the fluid aliment should be most 

 carefully avoided. 



