184 Dr. Oliver on the Prussic Acid. 



Some of the first experiments which I made with this 

 powerful agent, gave rather flattering results, although it 

 afterwards often failed in giving the relief anticipated. Such, 

 however was the success attending my trials, that I was in- 

 duced to recommend the acid to my medical brethren. 

 Several of them administered it, and with a success that oc- 

 casioned a demand for the article in the shops. Antece- 

 dent to my researches, the acid had not been seen in tliis sec- 

 tioh of the country, nor had any conjecture been made of its 

 medical properties, that I have heard of by any person; but 

 of this the early date itself of the certificate affords a pre- 

 sumption. 



The circumstances which induced me to turn my atten- 

 tion to the subject were, the want of success attending the 

 common modes of treating the phthisis pulmonalis, and my 

 having a very near relation in the incipient stage of that 

 disease,* I had read in Murray's Apparatus Medicarninum, 

 (when treating on the subject of prunus lauro-cerasus,) the 

 following, " Unica brevitate laborat Linnei (Amsen. ac T. 

 4, p. 30,) effatum, quod folia per Belgium usitatissima sunt 

 pro infusibne in morbis pulmones depascentibus (utor vero 

 propriis ejusdem verbis) Phthisis eundem intellexisse, ex 

 libro ejus de Materia Medica coUigo, in quo hie morbus 

 significatur." Some other hints to the same purpose, by 

 other writers, are to be found in the same article. The ex- 

 periments made with the aqua lauro-cerasus, by Dr. Brown 

 Langrist, had also suggested to my mind the probability of 

 the laurel proving a useful medicine. About the year 1810, 

 a small quantity of laurel-water came into ray possession ; 

 I prescribed it in the case of my relation with good effect, 

 and likewise in the case of one other patient laboring under 

 the same disease. But my laurel-water became exhausted 

 in a short time. I then applied to the late Professor Bar- 

 ton of Philadelphia, to ask his aid in procuring for me some 

 of the leaves of the prunus lauro-cerasus. He very kindly 

 sent me a small quantity which was all that could then be 

 procured. A tincture was made of the leaves, which, ou 

 trial, yielded the same result as the laurel-water. But here 



* I have spoken of the disease as being in the incipient stage, as the ex- 

 pectoration was not purulent, but such progress had the malady made, thai 

 most of the persons who saw the patient supposed it would prove fatal ; and 

 one physician pronounced that the disease appeared like desperate phthisi?. 



