LIME.

345

Lime in large doses acts as a poison : the symptoms in one case werethirst, burning in the mouth, burning pain in the belly, obstinate consti-pation, and death in nine days. (Christison.)

Uses. —Quicklime has been employed as a caustic, but alone is nowrarely resorted to. It is sometimes applied in the form of potassa cumcalce, and is a constituent of the ordinary depilatories. As an antidote,lime water, in conjunction with milk, was recommended by Navier{Contre-poison de Varsenic, &c. 1777, quoted by Richter, ausf. Arzn.) inpoisoning by arsenious acid. In the absence of more appropriate anti-dotes, lime water may be administered in poisoning by the commonmineral and oxalic acids. As a lithontriptic it possessed at one timeconsiderable celebrity, partly from its being one of the active ingredientsof Miss Joanna Stephens’ Receipt for the Stone and Gravel , as well asfrom experiments and reports of professional men. As this lady hadacquired no slight fame by her mode of treatment, a great desire wasmanifested to know the nature of her remedies, and she therefore offeredto discover them on the payment of a suitable reward. A committee ofprofessional men was appointed to examine the efficacy of her treatment,and her medicines were given to patients known to have calculi. Thereport made by the committee, as to the effects, was so favourable, thatParliament was induced to grant a reward of £5000, a notice of whichappeared in the London Gazette of March 18,1739! (D’Escheniy, ATreatise of the Causes and Symptoms of the Stone, 1755.) The essential/ parts of her remedies were lime (prepared by calcining egg-shells andsnails), soap, and some aromatic bitters; viz. camomile flowers, sweet fen-nel, parsley, and burdock leaves, &c. That the patients submitted to treat-ment obtained relief by the remedies employed cannot, I think, be doubted,but no cure was effected; that is, no calculus was dissolved, for in thebladder of each of the four persons whose cure was certified by thetrustees, the stone was found after their death (Alston’s Lect. on the Mat.Med. vol. i. p. 268). Notwithstanding the favourable reports to thecontrary (Chevallier, Med. Gaz. vol. xx. p. 460), it appears to me thatno rational ground of hope can now be entertained that lime water iscapable of dissolving urinary calculi in the kidneys or bladder: butthere is abundant evidence to prove that patients afflicted with the uricacid diathesis have sometimes experienced extraordinary benefit fromits use (Van Swieten’s Commentaries upon Boerhaave 's Aphorisms, vol. xvi.p. 299). Its mode of action is Wmalogohs to that of the alkalies ( videpp. 9 & 279). Clievallier {Med. Gaz. vol. xx. p. 584) accounts for itsefficacy in the treatment of gravel and stone by the circumstance of thecombination of the lime.with uric acid forming a very Soluble salt, viz.urate of lime ; and he even thinks that lime water may be useful in plios-phatic calculi, either by depriving them of a portion of the uric acidwhich they contain, and thus rendering them less dense; by decomposingthe ammoniacal salt which enters into the composition of some; or byacting on the animal matter which holds the molecules of these calculitogether. As an antacid in dyspepsia accompanied by acidity of sto-mach, it is sometimes useful. “ Mixed with an equal measure of milk,which completely covers its offensive taste, it is one of the best remediesin our possession for nausea and vomiting dependent on irritability ofstomach. We have found a diet, exclusively of lime water and milk, tobe more effectual than any other plan of treatment in dyspepsia, accom-