ELEMENTS OF MATERIA MEDICA.

714

that the relief could not be ascribed to a cathartic, a diaphoretic, or adiuretic operation.

8. In Suppression of Urine. —I have seen oil of turpentine succeed 111

reproducing the urinary secretion when other powerful diuretics hafailed. ,

9. In Infantile Diabetes. —Dr. Dewees ( Treatise on the Phys. an< *Moral Treatm. of Childr.) has cured three cases of diabetes [?] in infant*under fifteen months old, “ by keeping the bowels freely open, a 1 ’ 1putting a quantity of the spirits of turpentine upon the clothes of tnchildren, so as to keep them in a terebinthinate atmosphere.”

10. In Nephritic Diseases. —In some diseases of the kidneys, as ulc c 'ration, the use of oil of turpentine has been much extolled. It l ,aSproved successful in renal hydatids (Bayle, op. cit.)

11. In Dropsy . —Oil of turpentine has occasionally proved serviceab* 1,

in the chronic forms of this disease (see 4he authorities quoted by D r ‘Copland, Lond. Med. and Phys. Journ. vol. xlvi. p. 201). Its efficacydepends, in part, on its derivative operation as a stimulating diuretic »and in part, as I conceive, on its powerful influence over the capiffi ll Jand secerning vessels, by which it exercises a direct power of checkingeffusion. It is inadmissible, or is contraindicated, in dropsies acco 111 'panied with arterial excitement, or with irritation of stomach or of l j'urinary organs. When the effusion depends on obstruction to ffijreturn of venous blood, caused by the pressure of enlarged or indurate/viscera, tumors, &c. turpentine can be of no avail. But in the aton lCforms of dropsy, especially in leucoplilegmatic subjects, attendeddeficient secretion of the skin and kidneys, this oil is calculated to bof benefit. Dr. Copland (op. cit. p. 202) has used it in the stagof turgescence, or invasion of acute hydrocephalus, as a drastic and dcrivative. j

12. In Spasmodic Diseases.- —Oil of turpentine has been empl°y e j

successfully in the treatment of epilepsy, by Drs. Latham, Young? y l ,Percival, Lithgow, Copland, and Prichard "(Copland’s Diet. ofPract. j

p. 806). No benefit can be expected from this or any other medic ir,t ,’when the disease depends on organic lesion within the osseous envelop 1 ’of the nervous centres. But when the disease is what Dr. MarshyHall terms centripetal or eccentric, (as the convulsion of infantsquently is), that is, takes its origin in parts distant from the cereb r0 fspinal axis, which becomes affected only through the incident or exd 11nerves, we can easily understand that benefit may be obtained by 1use of agents like this, which, while it stimulates the abdominal viset’ 1 Joperates as a cathartic and anthelmintic, and produces a derivative actipon the head. A more extended experience of its use in chorea, hy stcl ! t gand tetanus, is requisite to enable us to speak with confidence oi 1efficacy in these diseases, though a few successful cases have been P ulished (Copland, Lond. Med. and Phys. Journ. vol. xlvi. p. 199; Pbd 11 !^’Med.-Chir. Trans, vol. vi.; Elliotson , Lancet, May 1830; Gibbon, D° nMed. Gaz. vol. vii. p. 428). ;

13. In Inflammation of the Eye. —Mr. Guthrie (Lond. Med.

vol. iv. p. 509) has employed oil of turpentine in inflammation of the 1 .and choroid coat, on the plan recommended by Mr. Hugh Canm c(loc. cit. vol. v. p. 836). In some cases, especially those of an artn