330 Remarks on the Use of Piperine. 



Cleonice, of Paoli, entered the hospital in the month of 

 March, 1824, to be treated of an incipient phthisis, in com- 

 bination with amenorrhaea, a treatment lightly depleting for 

 several months produced sensible advantages ; and although 

 the disease could not be called perfectly cured, a strong indi- 

 cation of a speedy recovery was apparent, for the crachats 

 presented a better appearance, the cough was diminished, 

 and the plethoric habit, accompanied with a kind of melan- 

 choly, had disappeared ; when, towards the end of Septem- 

 ber, of the same year, she was attacked with a violent inter- 

 mittent fever, having the type of a double tertian. This dis- 

 ease was treated without success, by the skillful Dr. Guidotti, 

 both by quinine in substance, and the sulphate of quinine in 

 pills. On the 16th of October, having succeeded Dr. Gui- 

 dotti in the hospitals, I found the patient much dejected and 

 disgusted with the insufficiency of the means employed. 

 Supposing the failure of the quinine depended upon some 

 neglect in its administration, or that the pills were perhaps 

 difficult of solution, I prescribed three doses of the same sub- 

 stance, in powder, to be taken daily. Two days after this 

 treatment the fever stopped short, and the patient recovered 

 a repose, which she had lost for a month. The remedy was 

 continued for six days, which prevented a relapse, which had 

 always been dissipated by the same remedy ; but every time 

 the use of it was suspended, the fever invariably returned. As 

 there were not sufficient symptoms to consider it of an inflam- 

 matory nature, I determined, on the 2nd of November, to 

 substitute for the sulphate of quinine, eight grains of piperine, 

 to be taken in three doses, as the sulphate, and with the same 

 precautions. The fever ceased the first day, and never re- 

 turned. The piperine was continued several days after, and 

 I assured myself of the certainty of the cure, having attended 

 the patient from her first disease until the end of December. 



Second. A man aged thirty years, at Castiglione, on the 

 sea shore, in the beginning of December, was seized with a 

 tertian fever, which obliged him to enter the hospital of St. 

 Antoine, of Livourne. Dr. Nicholas Orisini, being assured 

 that the patient had never before been afflicted with a like fe- 

 ver, nor ever made use of the quinine, thought proper, as a 

 good opportunity, to employ in this case the piperine, to as- 

 sure himself of its efficacy. With this view, he let the fever 

 run out one of its intermissions, without employing any re- 

 medy, in order to be better acquainted with the nature of the 



