38 
LIQUOR  OPII  COMPOSITUS. 
are  led  into  practices  which,  to  say  the  least,  do  not  always  tend 
to  improve  the  therapeutic  action  of  their  remedies, — the  use  of 
sugar-coated  pills,  for  example.  It  is  therefore  mainly  to  cover 
the  taste  and  odor  of  the  opiate,  to  render  it  more  acceptable  in 
delicate  conditions  of  the  stomach,  and  to  give  it  a  direction  or 
tendency  opposite  to  that  of  nausea,  that  a  small  proportion  of 
acetic  ether  and  purified  chloroform  are  now  introduced  into  it 
instead  of  the  compound  spirit  of  ether.  If  these  new  ingredi- 
ents have  any  important  medicinal  effect,  it  will  surely  be  in  a 
direction  opposite  to  the  natural  nauseating  and  depressing  effects 
of  the  opiate,  and  therefore  they  are  safe,  with  a  reasonable 
chance  of  being  useful. 
Such  good  effects  may  well  be  expected  from  chloroform,  and 
might  be  secured  if  the  chloroform  could  be  well  introduced  in 
larger  proportion,  for  the  following  principal  reasons,  which  have 
led  the  writer  to  use  it  in  the  formula.  Soon  after  the  internal 
use  of  chloroform  was  practised  it  was  found  to  be  sedative  and 
hypnotic,  or  to  have  very  much  the  same  therapeutic  effects  now 
attributed  to  chloral,  and  was  by  some  physicians  associated  with 
opiates,  and  particularly  with  the  salts  of  morphia,  with  very 
good  results  in  favorably  modifying  the  action,  and  controlling 
the  after  effects,  as  nausea,  anorexia,  headache,  depression,  etc. 
It  was,  however,  practically  very  difficult  to  get  the  two  substan- 
ces in  solution  together  within  the  limits  of  an  ordinary  dose 
without  inconvenience  from  the  pungency  of  the  chloroform,  and 
the  best  results  were  obtained  from  the  clumsy  and  inconvenient 
plan  of  mixing  them  with  thick  syrup  or  honey.  The  burning 
effect  of  the  chloroform  upon  the  mouth,  fauces  and  stomach, 
though  of  short  duration,  was  objectionable,  and  thus  the  associa- 
tion of  the  two  substances,  though  proved  to  be  eminently  ad- 
vantageous, never  came  into  general  use.  It  was,  however, 
sufficiently  used  and  appreciated  to  attract  the  attention  of 
quackery,  and  the  nostrum  called  "  cblorodyne  "  was  the  result. 
It  is  often  wonderful  to  see  how  squeamish  and  critical  physi- 
cians and  patients  are  to  the  disadvantages  and  inconveniences 
of  legitimate  extemporaneous  mixtures,  which,  when  served  to 
them  in  the  plausible  tone  of  quackery,  lose  all  their  disadvan- 
tages, and  come  out  afresh  with  sensational  novelty.  Chloroform 
