SPONGIA. 



ever been viewed as things in themselves, Burnt Sponge being con- 

 sidered as a compound in itself. For example, Allen's Inscripta of 

 Pure Materia Medica, Vol. 9, devotes eleven or more pages to its 

 therapeutic use, whilst other Homeopathic pharmacopeias, such as 

 that of the American Institute of Homeopathy, 1879, and the United 

 States Homeopathic Pharmacopeia, 1878, devoted due attention to the 

 preparation of the drug, as well as its dilutions and triturations. 



In this connection, it is evident in that in former times more or 

 less questionings arose concerning the possibility of displacing Burnt 

 Sponge by mixtures of charcoal and alkaline substances then known 

 to be present in it. That these attempts thus to brush the remedy of 

 old out of existence were failures is shown by a statement of the Royal 

 College of Physicians, London, 1809, only two years before the dis- 

 covery of iodine. 



"Burnt sponge appears practically to produce effects which no mixture 

 "of the alkali and charcoal does, especially in the removal of bronchocele; 

 and it is therefore retained." 



Constituents. — Burnt Sponge contains a large amount of combined 

 iodine, not "a trace" as Christison states. One minim of the Specific 

 Medicine represents one grain of spongp, and (see Characteristics, 

 p. 43) a fragment of a minim will give a deep blue color with starch 

 paste. In addition bromine, phosphorus, sulphur, and other elements 

 in unknown combinations go to make up Burnt Sponge. Whoever 

 reasons concerning the action of compounds made up of such sub- 

 stances as unknown combinations of the elements that theoretically 

 may be formulated into chloride of sodium, calcium sulphate, sodium 

 iodide, magnesium bromide, calcium carbonate, calcium phosphate, 

 magnesium and iron oxides, unknown sulphides, and phosphates re- 

 organized from organic tissue and reconstructed by heat from complex 

 organic bodies, presumes much in asserting that such combinations de- 

 pend solely for their qualities upon a single substance that may by 

 destructive chemical processes be isolated from the original product. 

 The intermolecular constitution of Burnt Sponge is to-day unknown, 

 and the part iodine takes in the therapy of that substance is also un- 

 known. 



Let us repeat that in our opinion the balanced structure, a com- 

 plexity in itself, that results in the empirical production of the com- 

 pound known as Burnt Sponge, can not be molecularly established by 

 any theoretical computation made from a review of the isolated constitu- 

 ents thereof. Consequently, the uses of this preparation by physicians 

 who employ it in contra-distinction to iodine or its compounds, are 

 accepted as logically applying to a structural- something, molecularly 

 unknown, that must be very different from iodine, or a single iodine 

 compound. 



Pharmaceutical Preparations. — The uses of Burnt Sponge are 

 recorded in the foregoing extracts, as well as in a multitude of like 

 publications. The use in Eclectic medicine has been centered mainly 

 on the alcoholic solution known as "Specific Medicine Spongia," in 



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