18 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1776. 



IX. Violent Asthmatic Fits, occasioned by the Effluvia of Ipecacuanha. Bu 

 fVilliain Scott, M. D., of Slamfordham, Northumberland, p. l68. 



Mrs. S. of Stainfbrdham, Northumberland, married a ])erson of the medical 

 faculty in the year 1759, being then about 26 years of age. She had been al- 

 ways remarkably healthy before that period, and quite free from all nervous or 

 other complaints, except a trifling nervous head-ach that used to affect her 

 temples and forehead, sometimes for a night or so, about the time of her men- 

 struation. The first year or '2 after marriage she enjoyed her usual good health 

 and spirits in general; but at times she was afflicted with a very troublesome 

 shortness of breathing, attended with a remarkable stricture about her throat and 

 breast, and with a particular kind of wheezing noise. These fits came on very 

 suddenly, and without any previous cause that at first could be assigned; and 

 were often so violent as to threaten immediate suffocation. Their duration was 

 uncertain, sometimes longer and sometimes shorter; but in general they went off 

 in 2 or 3 days, and commonly with a spitting of a tough plilegm, which, she 

 said, had a disagreeable metallic taste. When these fits were off, she enjoyed her 

 usual good health and spirits: had children; and suffered as little as any woman 

 could do, either in breeding or lying-in; and it was not observed, that she was 

 more subject to these fits when with child than at other times. She was blooded, 

 and took some common pectoral medicines for them; but without any benefit. 

 About li year, or 2 years, after her marriage, she told her husband, that she 

 observed these fits always attacked her when any ipecacuanha was powdered in 

 his shop; and that she was certain the effluvia of that medicine irhmediately 

 brougVit them on. This was looked on at first as a fancy, and little regard paid 

 to it for some time. However, frequently after this, when any of that medicine 

 was powdering or putting up, she used immediately to call out, perhaps from a 

 different room, that she found the ipecacuanha, and that they would see her im- 

 mediately affected by it. This Dr. S. and several others, saw frequently happen 

 as she had said; so that we were at last convinced, to a demonstration, that the 

 effluvia of the medicine, some how or other, so affected her nerves, as to bring 

 on a very great and remarkable degree of spasm all about her throat and breast. 

 Having thus had several repeated proofs of the effects the medicine had on her, 

 great precaution was therefore taken for several years never to pound any of it, 

 but to purchase it powdered; and also care was taken, when weighing or putting 

 any of it up, to send her out of the way, or to some distant part of the house. 

 By these means she was kept pretty clear of it for 7 or 8 years togetlier, during 

 which time she enjoyed perfect good healtli. 



Between 9 and 10 o'clock in the evening, June 3, 1775, her husband happen- 

 ing to have got home a quantity of the pulv. ipccacuanhae, inconsiderately opened 

 it out, and put it into a bottle; his wife not being far off at the time, and then 



