80 KAMALA AS AN ANTHELMINTIC. 



1858. ft j S) however, in its character of an anthelmintic that Kamala 



appears most to deserve the attention of the medical man and 

 pharmacist. 



Referring to the reports that have been published, we find 

 that the anthelmintic powers of Kamala have been investigated 

 in India by Drs. Mackinnon, Anderson, Corbyn, and Gordon. 



Trials of the drug in this country have as yet been very few. 

 Dr. Arthur Leared, who has been one of the first to prescribe it 

 in London, has recorded one successful case, 1 since which he in- 

 forms me he has had four others also successful. 



Dr. C. Mackinnon, 2 Superintending Surgeon, Bengal Medical 

 Establishment, in introducing to notice the new remedy, states : 



Anthelmintic " My attention was first called to it by a gunner of the 

 f brigade, affected with tapeworm, in whom both turpentine and 

 kousso had failed to expel the worm. He stated that a com- 

 panion of his affected with tapeworm had taken the remedy 

 with success. I immediately sent for some, and, without any 

 previous preparation of the patient, gave him three drachms. He 

 was a large, powerful man, and this producing no effect, in four 

 hours afterwards the same dose was repeated. It now operated 

 very freely and frequently, and with the fourth stool a large 

 tapeworm, six yards long, was passed. 



" The result was so satisfactory, that I have continued to 

 employ the remedy whenever a case presented itself; and I 

 have now given it in sixteen different cases, and in all without a 

 failure. As far as my experience goes, I have found it a better 

 and more certain remedy than either turpentine or kousso, and 

 much less disagreeable to take than either of these remedies. 



" In none of my cases subsequent to the first did I ever exceed 

 for a single dose three drachms. This usually purges from five 

 to seven times, and the worm is usually expelled dead in the 

 fourth or fifth stool. 



" In two of the later cases in which I administered it in 

 hospital, both patients recently recovered from fever, and still 

 weak, the dose of three drachms purged very violently from a 

 dozen to fourteen times. In three subsequent cases I reduced the 

 dose to 1% drachms, and no action on the bowels succeeding it, 

 I gave in six hours afterwards half an ounce of castor-oil. 



1 Medical Times and Gazette, Dec. 19, 1857, p. 628. 



a Indian Annah of Medical Science. Ed. 2, No. 1, p. 284. Calcutta 

 1854. 



