1 To produce an emetic action the dose must be increased.

2 Chiefly employed as a vehicle.

3 See cautionary remarks under antimonii et potassii tartras. Larger doses than are here given are necessary if an emetic action be desired.

4 See opium for caution in regard to employment of opiates.

5 Veratrum viride should be prescribed to young children with extreme caution.

6 The doses are mentioned, but antimonials should not be prescribed to very young children.

Doses based on the Weight of the Patient.

This method of calculating the dose is an unusual one, but it seems to respond tolerably accurately to the test of experiment. In a large number of cases, the results attained will be singularly in unison with those arrived at by the processes already alluded to for young people. As children, however, vary so much in size, and the inconvenience of guessing or of procuring the actual weight may be an obstacle in the way of extreme accuracy of measurement of the dose, it is more desirable to adhere to the rules already laid down. As a matter of curiosity, it is well to know that, according to this method of calculation, and allowing the average weight of the adult to be 150 pounds, for whom the proper dose is assumed to be 1, the dose of medicine, as a general rule, must be increased or diminished in the proportion of the patient's weight to that number of pounds, a proportion represented by a fraction whose numerator is the patient's weight and whose denominator is 150.'

If a child at birth weighs 6 pounds, the approximate dose for it would be 10 or '.

If it weighs 10 pounds, 15% or Ts

A child 2 years old, weighing 20 pounds, would require, or about 4 of an adult dose.

A child 12 years old, weighing 75 pounds, would require, or of an average dose.

A person whose weight is 200 pounds should have 188, or 13 of an average adult dose.

200

The modifications of the average dose demanded by a patient's idiosyncrasy, disease, and other conditions than age or weight, are not, of course, met by this rule.

Prof. E. H. Clarke on A New Rule for Doses, Boston Med, and Surg. Journal, Sept. 26, 1872.

Doses of Remedies in General.

In the following list are given the doses of several hundred articles of the Materia Medica. The table has been carefully arranged by the author, and will doubtless be found serviceable to the practitioner.

Under the head of "Officinal Preparations," reference is made to the preparations of the U. S. Pharmacopoeia, of which the remedy is an important ingredient. (See Pharmacopoeial Groups.)

Under the heading "Approximate Metric Dose," is given as nearly as possible the dose of the remedy according to the metric system, corresponding, in each instance, with that given to it under the heading "Dose," according to the system in general use. The metric dose is given in grammes alone, the transposition of which into decigrammes, centigrammes, etc., may be readily made by the reader, if deemed desirable, according to the tables previously given. To avoid the apparent intricacy of the metric system, the approximate dose is alone mentioned. Thus absinthium is credited with a dose of 1.3 to 2.6 grammes, whereas the actual amount is 1.295 to 2.591 grammes. Usually this will be sufficiently explicit, except in the case of potent remedies, such as digitalinum, where even minute fractions of a gramme would be of consequence. The gramme, it must be remembered, is equal to 15.434 grains. Liquids are estimated according to the rule previously given (p. 31).

When the dose of a remedy is not mentioned in the following table, the article is not prescribed alone internally, but in some officinal preparation, or externally.

The doses of Tinctures, Syrups, Extracts, Infusions, etc., will be found separately detailed under "Pharmacopæial Groups."

1

1 Additional New Remedies will be found on p. 336.