222 PHARAfACOPEIAL DRUGS 



doses of drugs were administered, and the fatal effects 

 of nux vomica "were soon recorded. Lewis' Materia 

 Medica, 1761, (382), discourses as follows: 



Nux VOMICA. Pharm. Paris. Nux Metella. Vomic 

 Nui.: a flat roundish seed or kernel, about an inch 

 broad and near a quarter of an inch thick, of a grey 

 colour, covered with a kind of wooly matter, internally 

 hard and tough like horn. It is the product of a large 

 tree growing in the East Indies, called by Plukenet 

 cucurbitifera malabariensis, cenoplice foliis rotundis, 

 frudu orbiculari rubro cujus grana sunt nuces vomicce 

 officinarum. 



This seed discovers to the taste a considerable bit- 

 terness, but makes little or no impression on the organs 

 of smell. It has been recommended in tertian and 

 quartan fevers, in virulent gonorrhoeas, and as an 

 alexipharmac : Fallopius relates, that "it was given with 

 success in the plague; that in doses of from a scruple 

 to hah* a dram, it procured a plentiful sweat; and that 

 where this evacuation happened, the patient recovered. 

 At present it is looked upon, and not without good 

 foundation, as a deleterious drug; which, though like 

 many other deleterious substances, capable, in certain 

 doses and in certain circumstances, of producing happy 

 effects, has its salutary and pernicious operations so 

 nearly and so indeterminably allied, that common pru- 

 dence forbids its being ventured upon. Hoffman tells 

 us of a girl of ten years of age, to whom fifteen grains, 

 given in two doses, for the cure of an obstinate quartan, 

 proved mortal." 



As an exceptional authority concerning the neglect 

 of nux vomica by early Indian observers, let us quote 

 from Dymock: 



