Page:Chronicles of pharmacy (Volume 2).djvu/199

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vinous infusion of white hellebore with laudanum. Mr. Bushell, quoting from some references to the medicine in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal of 1810, relates the experience of a Dr. Edwin Godden Jones, who had come to know of D'Husson's remedy while on the Continent with a gentleman who was a great sufferer from gout, and who had derived much benefit from the nostrum. The Edinburgh journal also mentioned that Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal Society, having experienced the most extraordinary deliverance from his arch-enemy, made D'Husson's preparation his pocket companion. Attempts to discover the secret of the mixture still resulted unsatisfactorily. Rhododendron, chrysanthemum, digitalis, tobacco, and elaterium were among the new guesses made. In 1814, however, a Mr. Want published a statement in the Medical and Physical Journal indicating that colchicum was the basis of D'Husson's remedy. Mr. Bushell states that Want had previously made known his discovery in a popular journal entitled The Monthly. There are three stories of the means by which he came by his information. He himself said he got the first hint from Alexander of Tralles, who recommended a remedy "Hermodactylon" for the cure of gout, and that the Hermodactylus from which that was compounded corresponded with colchicum. Dr. Wallis, of Bristol, however, "in justice to a departed friend," wrote that Want had derived his knowledge entirely from Mr. C. T. Haden, when the latter was a medical officer of the Brompton Dispensary. Dr. Wallis says that in 1811 Mr. Haden was practising in Derby with his father, an eminent surgeon of that town. They had a patient who was anxious to try the Eau Medicinale. The younger Haden examined the stuff and came to the