SPONGIA. 



tect against taint. This feature is more fully explained in Lewis' 

 Materia Medica, London, 1768, wherein the foregoing formula, in 

 substance, is given as follows: 



Burnt in a close, earthen vessel, till it becomes black and friable, it has 

 been given in doses of a scruple against scrophulous complaints and cu- 

 taneous defedations; in which it has sometimes been of service, in virtue, 

 probably, of its saline matter, the proportion of which, after the great re- 

 duction which the other matter of the sponge has suffered in the burning, 

 is very large. By virtue of this saline matter also, the preparation, if ground 

 in a brass mortar, corrodes so much of the metal, as to contract a disagret- 

 nble taint, and sometimes an emetic quality: hence the college expressly y 

 orders it to be powdered in a mortar of glass or marble. — Lewis's Materia 

 Medica, London, 176S. , 



It is evident, as experience thus taught, that an emetic compound 

 of copper was produced when a brass mortar was employed. 



Coeval with such authorities, as well as others preceding and fol- 

 lowing. Burnt Sponge maintained its position as a remedial agent. 

 Of this, a quotation from Motherby, giving the uses of Burnt Sponge, 

 together with directions for preparing the drug, is sufficient as an 

 illustration : 



Spongia is used in scrofulous disorders, and cutaneous foulnesses, for 

 which end it is reduced, by lightly burning it, to a black povVder, which is 

 given in doses from gr. x to xx, two or three times a day; its virtues, which 

 render it useful in these disorders, depend on a volatile, animal, alkaline 

 salt (with which it abounds), and the oil of the sponge united. 



When sponge is cut in small pieces, and freed from the stony matters 

 which are lodged in it, it is burnt in a close, earthen vessel until it is black 

 and friable, and when being powdered in a stone or a glass mortar, it is 

 kept in a close vial for use. The burning should be discontinued as soon 

 as the matter becomes thoroughly black; as the outside of a large quantity 

 will be sufficiently burnt before the middle is much affected; the best 

 method is, to cut it in small pieces, and keep it continually stirring in such 

 a machine as cofifee is roasted in. — Motherby's Medical Dictionary, London, 1785. 

 (Second Edition.) 



In 1812, M. Courtois, of Paris, in manufacturing soda, observed 

 that the mother liquors from kelp corroded the boilers. In experi- 

 menting therewith he discovered the element, iodine. Close following 

 came the fact that sea plants generally, as well as some of the lower 

 forms of animal life of the sea, contained more or less iodine. The 

 new element not only became a fashionable remedy for "scrophulous 

 diseases," but led to the supposition that, as before stated, it alone 

 constituted the remedial portion of Burnt Sponge. Thus, such au- 

 thorities as Christison, in his Dispensatory, 1848, asserts: 



Sponge contains a trace of combined iodine, and before the discovery 

 of this element and its compounds, was, in the charred state, a remedy in 

 scrofula and goitre. Its use internally, however, is now obsolete. 



Indeed, it may perhaps be accepted that the discovery of iodine, 

 and its occurrence in sponge, led the professions of medicine and 

 pharmacy, theoretically, to displace Burnt Sponge with iodine and its 



39 



