so 
PINOS PICEA. 
other spasmodic diseases. But it is in arresting the progress of 
puerperal fever that this medicin^ has proved truly valuable. We 
believe Dr. Brennan of Dublin was the first practitioner who employed 
it in this disease, and much about the same time it was resorted to by 
Dr. Copland, who had the superintendance of the Queen's Lying-in 
Hospital : the former gentleman likewise extended its use to other 
cases of fever, and we believe frequently with the most decided suc- 
cess. A case recently came under our own observation which de- 
serves to be recorded. A gentleman was attacked over night with 
all the worst symptoms of a malignant typhus fever, which was 
epidemic at the time ; his house-keeper procured for him half an 
ounce of the spirits of turpentine, which she persuaded him to take, 
drinking copiously of barley water after the dose ; it produced plen- 
tiful evacuations both by stool and urine, and before morning all the 
feverish symptoms had left him ; but inflammation of the bladder 
and urethra was the consequence of the dose he had taken, and for 
several days he passed bloody urine, and was considered in a very 
dangerous way. It appears to us that the oil of turpentine should 
be given either in small, or in large doses ; for the former, from 3ss 
to si, and for the latter, from gi to 3ii ; the medium dose is likely to 
be attended with the danger we have spoken of. Dr. Murray says 
that by giving it in large quantities it operates on the bowels as a 
cathartic, by which its absorption and action on the. urinary organs 
are obviated, and the danger of stranguary avoided ; we think there- 
fore that whenever recourse is had to it in cases of fever, it should be 
given in large doses : from one to two ounces has been the usual 
dose in cases of puerperal fever, and it has also been given in this 
quantity in cases of chronic rheumatism ; in the smaller doses it 
acts chiefly as a diuretic. Dr. Fenwick has recommended this pre- 
paration of turpentine as a powerful anthelmintic in cases of taenia ; * 
by giving it in large doses, and repeating it if necessary, purging is 
produced, and the worm is expelled lifeless : it has also been resorted 
to for the expulsion of other species of worms, and frequently with 
success. In obstinate constipation of the bowels, in apoplexy, and 
in acute hydrocephalus of infants, we have seen decided advantage 
from the use of a turpentine enema ; about half an ounce of the 
essential oil being added to the common cathartic enema. On the 
whole, as an internal remedy, we are glad to see practitioners incline 
to give this peculiar substance a fair trial, and we would strongly 
See Medico-Chirargical Transactions, toI, ii. 
