Chininum arsenicosum

Volume I — Special Symptomatology

(Quinia Arsenias.) Pharmacology. — The arsenite of quinine is used by many practitioners ; but as 1 consider the arseniate the best preparation, I have made it officinal. (Hale.)

The arseniate may be prepared by placing one and a half drachms of arsenious acid in a glass vessel, with five drachms quinia, and six fluid ounces of distilled water; boil till all is dissolved; filter and allow to crystalize spontaneously. To purify, dissolve these crystals, and then crystalize again.

The Arsenite of Quinia is prepared by placing sixteen grains of arsenious acid, eight grains carbonate of potassa, and one fluid ounce distilled water

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in a glass vessel ; boil till all is dissolved, adding water to keep the q jan tity of the solution at one fluid ounce. To two and a half drachms of the solution add twenty grains sulphate of quinia, previously dissolved in distilled water by boiling. The arsenite of quinia precipitates in the form of a white, amorphous substance, which must be well washed and dried. Soluble in alcohol, but not in water.

Officinal Preparations. — Dilutions with alcohol ; triturations. {See Therapeutics, Vol. II.)

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

Th is is another unproven drug, which I think ought to be used more than it is by our school. My experience with it in a certain class of malarious diseases has been quite satisfactory. While engaged in practice in a miasmatic district I frequently had to treat mismanaged intermittents of an obstinate character. They were generally of a mixed type; sometimes tertian , then quotidian, and often changing to a masked form, such as periodical neuralgia and various obscure neuroses. To treat such cases was like chasing a 11 will-o’-wisp ” through a dark swamp, especially if I tried to treat them symptomatically. In fact, I can assure you that it is useless to treat the symptoms of such cases, for you will have to change your remedy every day, and then fail to cure the disease, which will constantly elude you. You must strike at the root of the malady ; you must select the remedy for the genius of the disease, first; afterwards characteristic symptoms may be taken into account.

In the majority of these obstinate and masked intermittents both Arsenicum and Cinchona are indicated, and instead of using them in alternation I hit upon the plan of prescribing this compound or . chemical union of the two drugs. Some cases required the lx trituration, but rarely did I have to use it below the 2X. It was usually ordered in doses of one or two grains every two or four hours, and the patient was urged to persist in its use for several weeks. This plan, aided sometimes by a temporary removal to a non-malarious region, was generally very successful in eradicating the disorder.

Dr. George A. Hall, and several other physicians of Chicago, are enthusiastic in their praises of this remedy. He values it very highly in all diseases where Arsenic and China are indicated. In diseases of children, characterized by chronic intestinal derangements, combined with debility from loss of fluids and poor nutrition, he prescribes the 3X trituration with good results.

I have never given it higher than the 6th dilution. Pellets saturated with this attenuation often act kindly in children of sensitive nervous systems. I believe it will prove a valuable addition to our Materia Medica.

Dr. W. H. Plolcombe, in a clinical lecture on “Primary Chronic Malarial Poisoning,” says : “It is only by prolonged treatment that we can effectually cure these insidious and complicated chronic diseases. If the remedy now chosen fails to make an impression in a fortnight, I shall probably remind you of two others which I have found exceedingly valuable in these cases of chronic malarial poisoning. These are the Arseniate of quinine and Arseniate of iron. I use them in the first centesimal trituration, not the decimal, for there is too much Arsenic in them for that. I prefer the former when the nervous system is more deeply implicated than the organic ; and the latter when the anaemia seems to be the preponderating element in the pathological state.”