Laennec of Paris, it has again become a general method of treatment. According to this method, tartar-emetic is given to the extent of twelve, twenty, or even thirty grains a-day in divided doses; and not only without producing any dangerous irritation of the alimentary canal, but even also not unfrequently without any physiological effect whatever. Doubts were at one time entertained of the accuracy of the statements to this effect published by foreign physicians; but these doubts are now dissipated, as the same practice has been tried, with the same results, by many in Britain. Rasori ascribes the power the body possesses of enduring large doses of tartar-emetic without injury, to a peculiar diathesis which accompanies the disease and ceases along with it. And it is said, that the same patients, who, while the disorder continues, may take large doses with impunity, are affected in the usual manner, if the doses are not rapidly lessened after the disease has begun to give way. The testimony of Laennec on the subject is impartial and decisive. He observes he has given as much as two grains and a half every two hours till twenty grains were taken daily, and once gave forty grains in twenty-four hours by mistake; that he never saw any harm result; and that vomiting or diarrhœa was seldom produced, and never after the first day. The power of endurance he found to diminish, but not, as Rasori alleges, to cease altogether, when the fever ceases; for some of his patients took six, twelve, or eighteen grains daily when in full convalescence.[1] My own observations correspond with Laennec's, except as to the effects of large doses during convalescence, of which effects I have had no experience. I have seen from six to twenty grains, given daily in several doses of one or two grains, check bad cases of pneumonia and bronchitis, without causing vomiting or diarrhœa after the first day, and also without increasing the perspiration. At the same time I have twice seen the first two or three doses excite so violent a purging and pain in the stomach and whole bowels, that I was deterred from persevering with the remedy. In continued fever too I have repeatedly found that the doses mentioned above did not cause any symptoms of irritation in the stomach or intestines.
The large quantities now mentioned have even been sometimes given in a single dose with nearly the same results. Dr. Christie mentions in his Treatise on Cholera that he sometimes gave a scruple in one dose with the effect of exciting merely some vomiting and several watery stools. But he admits that in one instance symptoms were induced like those of a case of violent cholera.[2]
The same large doses have been given by some in delirium tremens without any poisonous effect being produced. A correspondent of the Lancet has even mentioned that on one occasion, after gradually increasing the dose, he at last wound up the treatment, successfully as regarded the disease, and without any injury to the patient,
