418 
VERMIFUGE PROPERTIES OF PUMPKIN-SEEDS. 
of Messrs. Duncan, Flockhart, and Company—now make upwards of 7000 doses of 
chloroform every day, counting two drachms as a full dose; they thus send out nearly 
2,500,000 doses a year. Are every two million and a half full doses which are used of 
opium, antimony, aloes, Epsom salts, etc., attended with as little danger and as few ulti¬ 
mate deaths as these annual 2,500,000 doses of chloroform ?— Medical Times and Ga¬ 
zette, Dec. 16th. 
VERMIFUGE PROPERTIES OF PUMPKIN-SEEDS. 
Whether the circumstance he due to the inefficacy of kousso, or the high price of the 
drug, pumpkin-seeds are again becoming with the profession a popular remedy for tape¬ 
worm. We may adduce, in illustration of this statement, two papers published in the 
month of August by M. Bouvier, a medical officer in the Belgian service, and by Dr. 
Desnos, of the hospitals of Paris. 
M. Bouvier relates, in the ‘Archives Medicates Beiges,’ that a little German boy, aged 5, 
and his sister, both presented symptoms of tapeworm after eating raw and smoked 
Westphalian ham. The little girl had been cured two years previously, but the boy, 
who had been ill three weeks only, was in a state of alarming emaciation. Pome¬ 
granate-bark had been exhibited, but its only effect was to induce severe colic. M. Bouvier 
then prescribed pumpkin-seed paste, prepared by bruising an ounce of the seeds denuded of 
their cuticle with sugar, and adding two ounces of milk. On the previous day, the 
child had taken two teaspoonfuls of castor oil, and was kept on low diet. The oil 
was repeated on the day which followed the exhibition of the paste, and no food was 
allowed. 
The medicine was taken without repugnance, and produced neither colic nor nausea. 
Several motions were induced, in each of which fragments of the tapeworm were de¬ 
tected, and the head and hooklets were found next day in a hard stool. The mother 
having thus acquired the certainty that a cure was effected, at once displayed the un¬ 
doubted proofs of the happy results of the medicine to Dr. Bouvier. 
Dr. Desnos reports two closely analogous cases in the ‘Journal de Chimie Medicale.’ 
The patients were a saddler, aged 84, and an operative, aged 22 . In the former, the 
leading feature was an enormous increase of appetite ; he consumed as much as twenty- 
four pounds of solid food in the course of the day. The taenia was passed after two 
days’ treatment. Forty-eight hours after his admission into hospital, the patient drank 
a bottle of seidlitz-water, and took an emulsion prepared with ten drachms of pumpkin- 
seeds, five drachms of castor-oil, and the same quantity of honey. 
The medicine was exhibited in the morning, and in the afternoon the patient passed 
two metres of taenia, with the head of the parasite. 
In the second case, kousso had been resorted to without benefit. On the 9th of 
July, two days after the patient’s admission, he was deprived of food, and on the 10 th 
took an emulsion of pumpkin-seeds denuded of their cuticle, in six ounces of water, 
and half an hour later three tablespoonfuls of castor-oil, mixed with an equal quantity 
of peppermint-water. On the 11 th the worm was passed entire, rolled up in a ball; 
the patient suffered some pain, but less violent colics than he had previously expe¬ 
rienced from the kousso. On the 12th, castor-oil was again administered, and no re¬ 
lapse has since taken place. 
Mr. Desnos remarks, in conclusion, that results even more favourable may be ob¬ 
tained from the combined action of the resinous extract of male fern with pumpkin- 
seeds ; the following is the formula recommended by Dr. Debout:— 
P Pumpkin-seeds, 5 x. 
Sugar, sj. 
Water, ^vj. 
Extr. of male fern, 53 —ij. 
To be taken fasting in four doses, at intervals of a quarter of an hour.— Dublin 
Medical Press , from Journ. of Tract. Med. and Surgery. 
