water, glycerine, each 3ij. One teaspoonfull every three hours. In a few days patient was better. In a month the sores healed, and patient says she is well.

II. Rheumatism for several years; has tried almost everything without benefit (symptoms not given). Prescribed Soda hyposulphite 3 iv; simple syrup ij;. aqua gaultheria vj÷. One tablespoonfull three times a day. In two weeks he felt a great deal better, and in three weeks, sent word he was "all right."

III. "We have out West a cutaneous eruption peculiar to children, which I have heard called pemphigus, scabies, impetigo, etc., which begins with a small, whitish-yellow spot, filled with matter, which, on scratching, breaks and leaves a raw sore, or if the patient don't scratch it, a scab forms. It affects the head, body and legs, spreading all over the patient, causing fever, emaciation, and rarely death. I have used chlorate potassa, iodide potassa, stillingia, etc. Tired of all these I turned my attention to the hyposulphite of soda; dissolved it (not particular as to quantity) in rain or rose water, and bathed frequently the affected part. Gave internally hyposulphite soda, 3ij; glycerine and water, each 3ij. A tablespoonfull every three hours until better; then three times a day. I have had no trouble with such cases since."-Dr. Scott, Eclectic Medical Journal.

Remarks. Our readers will recollect the papers by Dr. Paoli on the sulphites and hyposulphites as remedies for zymotic diseases. They were published in the U. S. Med. & Surg. Journal, and many other medical periodicals. Dr. Paoli's theory is that these sulphites have the power of destroying the cryptogams and parasites which cause disease when introduced into the body in any way. He recommended them in pyemia, exanthemantic fevers, septic conditions, etc. The recent discoveries of Prof. Salisbury, that many diseases are caused by algoid vegetations (syphilis, gonorrhoea,) and that many malarious diseases have a cryptogamous origin, coupled

with the fact that the sulphites destroy such organisms, have tended to bring these medicines, particularly the hyposulphites of soda and magnesia into use as remedies for such maladies. Scarlatina, variola, rubeola and intermittent and remittent fevers have been successfully treated by these medicines.

SULPHITE OF SODA IN ERYSIPELAS. Dr. Hewson, of Philadelphia, writes that he has used this salt for four years, as an external application to erysipelas, and had obtained results interesting and surprising. He thinks recent researches would lead us to suppose that erysipelas was due to a cryptogamic or animalcular origin, and the well-known power of the sulphite of soda in destroying such organisms, accounts for its useful action in that disease. He applies a solution of ten grains to the ounce of water, applied on lint, to the surface affected, and to a considerable distance beyond it, and covered with oiled silk, to prevent the evaporation of the solution. It not only produces a decided bleaching effect on the discolored surface, in every instance, in the first twenty-four hours of its use, but it invariably destroyed all traces of the disease in forty-eight hours from its first application.-Canada Medical Journal.

Remarks. The application of this salt would seem far superior to the use of caustics, as iodine and nitrate of silver, which do more harm than good. With the internal use of our specifics, apis, belladonna and rhus, that disease will be robbed of its severity.

PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF SANTONINE. According to the recent inquiries of Pelikan, the celebrated toxicologist of St. Petersburg, this substance possesses other properties than those usually attributed to it. (1.) Santonine produces a sort of paralysis, accompanied with rigidity of the muscles. (2.) Its effects are produced in a manner analogous to the mode of action of atropine. (3.) It entirely destroys the irritability of muscles, rendering them completely rigid. (4.) Its therapeutical properties deserve to be more fully inquired into.-Med. Times and Gazette.

Remarks.

If this "celebrated toxicologist" had consulted Hahnemann's Materia Medica, (Article, Cina,) he might have found all the symptoms enumerated above. Hahnemann's investigations preceded M. Pelikan's by nearly half a century! It is high time that the allopaths

I

"more fully inquired into" the action of santonine. have known several deaths in children from santonine, given in the enormous doses used by allopaths. The victims died in convulsions and fearful sufferings; but, because these "regulars" had never inquired into the action of this poison, they had not the slightest idea that they were guilty of causing death.

Although I believe that Cina, and its alkaloid, Santonine, will pathogenetically cause that morbid condition of the intestinal secretions favorable to worms, and will, therefore, remove such conditions, in minute doses, I also believe the medicine has a poisonous influence on the parasites themselves the same poisonous effects, perhaps, that it has on the human organism, namely, paralysis and death-thus allowing them to be disintegrated in the intestines, or expelled from them by natural or artificial forces.

SOLANUM NIGRUM.

(Garden Nightshade.)

BY B. M. HALE, M. D., CHICAGO, ILL.

A few years ago, a homoeopathic physician from the State of Indiana, while on a visit to this city, informed pharmaceutist of Chicago, that the Belladonna was found in large quantities, indigenous to the section of country in which he resided, and that he had for several years used a tincture of the leaves and berries, and found it equal if not superior to the tincture of

He was requested by the

This

Belladonna of the pharmacies. pharmacutist to send a specimen of the plant here. On its arrival it proved to be the Solanum nigrum. physician, not being a botanist, had mistaken the plant. This is not very strange when we consider that the common name of both plants is "Nightshade." In the older works on botany the "Atropa Belladonna" was placed in the Genus, Solanum, or Nightshade family, and designated as the "Solanum Lethale" and "S. Majus." As the Atropa Belladonna may sometime become naturalized in this country, (it even now grows wild in some of the Eastern and middle States,) it may be well to point out the essential differences between them :

BELLADONNA.

STEMS strong, branched, purple - colored, from three to five feet high, hairy. LEAVES, of an equal size, entire, oval, pointed, in pairs, on short footstalks, FLOWERS, dark, or brownish-purple colored, large, pendant, bell-shaped, furrowed, cut in five segments.

BERRIES ripe in September, of a shining black.

SOLANUM NIGRUM.

STEM low, much branched, spreading, rough on the angles.

LEAVES ovate, many toothed, (almost
always perforated by some insect.)
FLOWERS white, very small, is small and
umbel, like lateral clusters, drooping,
five parted.

BERRIES small, globular, black, ripe in
September.

It will be seen that although the two plants widely differ, a careless observer might mistake the one for the other, when the berries are ripe, especially if the Solanum is pointed out to him as as the "deadly night

shade."

But there is yet a more important point to consider. If the physician referred to had really used the Solanum for two or three years, instead of Belladonna, and found it equal if not superior to the latter, (and we have no reason to doubt his statement,) then there must be a very marked similarity of action in the two plants. When we come to investigate the toxical and pathogenetic effects of the Belladonna and Solanum nig, we do certainly find a notable resemblance. The following symptoms gleaned from various sources are known to have en caused by the Solanum nigrum :

1. Complete cessation of the mental functions.

2. Torpor of the whole system.

3. Vertigo, with headache, sickness, colic and tenesmus. Horrible headache.

4.

5.

The face is congested with blood.

6. Red, bloated face.

7. Confused and anxious expression of countenance.

8. Open, humid and glistening eyes.

9. Extreme dilatation of both pupils.

10. Alternate contraction and dilatation of the pupils. 11. Mistiness before the eyes.

12. Loathing, vomiting of ingesta.

13. Copious vomiting of a greenish colored matter, with thirst, dilated pupils, stertorous respiration, convulsions and tetanic stiffness of the limbs.

14.

Frequent vomiting, first of mucus, afterwards of a bluish or gray blackish fluid.

15. Purging, the next day after the dose, (3 grs. of the leaves.)

16.

Tenesmus of the anus.

17. Difficulty of breathing.

18. Hot skin, though covered with sweat.

19. Copious perspiration.

20. Frequent sweats over the whole body.

21. Excessive thirst, (with the symptoms in No. 13.) 22. Small frequent pulse; or quick, irregular pulse. Red, scarlet spots on the whole skin.

23.

24. Great sensitiveness of the cutaneous surface. 25. Convulsions and spasms; they stretch their hands during the spasms, as if they would grasp something, after this the hands are carried to the mouth, and the boys (of two or three years,) chew and swallow.

26. The spasms are excited by touching the skin. 27. Tetanic rigidity of the whole body; trismus. 28. Deep sleep.

29. Coma, alternating with convulsions and moaning. 30. Great restlessness; violent convulsive restlessness.