v HEMLOCK AND CINCHONA 43 



medicine, although it had been much opposed, and had little 

 place as yet in the official pharmacopoeias. Sydenham was 

 suspicious of it, thinking that it produced rheumatism. 

 Boerhaave had an unconquerable dread of the bark, and even 

 withheld it from students suffering from ague, to their grievous 

 loss. Fothergill used it much. He records a series of cases, 

 showing its value for scrofulous children with ophthalmia, 

 enlarged glands and skin troubles ; he gave them as much of 

 the decoction as they would take, adding calomel, antimony 

 or other eliminatives at the same time, and a diet of broths 

 and light animal foods. Some cases were uncured, especially 

 if bones or joints were involved, but many yielded to a pro- 

 longed use of the remedy. Fothergill was in the habit of 

 prescribing a decoction of one ounce of the powder in from 

 one to two pints of water, adding liquorice root, raisins or 

 gum arabic before it was removed from the fire, to thicken the 

 liquor and thus keep the powder in suspension. After strain- 

 ing he added nutmeg water or spirit of lavender ; and with 

 each dose of two to four tablespoonfuls, tincture of guaiacum, 

 10 to 60 drops, was to be taken, in order to reduce the 

 astringency of the cinchona. Sometimes the winter's bark 

 was combined with the other, so as to give the medicine a 

 grateful warmth. For he liked the more aromatic and spicy 

 barks contrayerva was another favourite belonging to the 

 class then caUed " antiseptics." 1 Balsams, resins and gums 

 were also in frequent use. 



Fothergill gave soap-lees (liquor potasses) in long-continued 

 doses to dissolve stone in the bladder or kidney ; Mrs. Stephens' 

 famous lithontriptic, purchased by parliament in 1740 for 

 5000, had brought soap into repute for this disorder. He 

 condemned the ordinary use of opiates in gout, and he avoided 

 local applications (sedative or repressive) in this disease. A 

 diuretic punch in a bad case of gout with dropsy was to be 

 made with Spa water three parts, old hock two parts, and one 

 of rum, with a little sugar ; sal-absinthii (potash) and bitters 

 were also given, with an elixir of ammonia, paregoric and squill 

 for the dyspnoea ; and a dose of Dover's powder at night. 

 He was no abstainer from alcohol, though abstemious, and 

 he writes in 1768 on the " pernicious custom " of drinking 

 liquors between meals. 2 



1 On the Use of the Cortex Peruvianus in Scrofulous Disorders, read 1756 ; 

 Med. Obs. & Ing. i. 303 ; Works, ii. 3, iii. p. xlviii. Fothergill tried to 

 procure a living cinchona tree, and seems to have had one in his garden, which, 

 however, did not live long. 



2 One of the contentious and uncandid pamphlets of Dr. W. Rowley, 

 A Letter to Dr. W. Hunter, 1774, gives a series of prescriptions for a case of 



