Aurum arsenicum

Volume I — Appendix

(Sulph. Arsenate of Gold.)

Description. — There are two salts of these elements, a tribasic and a dibasic salt.

The tribasic is formed by precipitation from a gold solution with the tribasic Arsenate of sodium. It is a dark-brown precipitate, soluble in water.

The dibasic salt is obtained by precipitation of a solution with the neutral salt arsenite of sodium. It dissolves in pure water, with a red-brown color.

Preparation. — Triturations, from 3* to G*.

° Suicidal mania, accompanied with great fear of death. ° Chronic headaches, due to syphilis, necrosis, periostitis, and ozsena.

° Cancer of the face, nose, stomach, and uterus.

° Malignant diseases of the intestinal tract.

° Lupus, depending upon scrofula, are rapidly ameliorated and ultimately cured.

° Rapid increase of appetite. The peristaltic contractions of the stomach and intestines are excited, and absorption occurs with greater rapidity. ° Functional cardiac diseases. (Hale.)

0 Anaemia and chlorosis.

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

This new salt, combining as it does two most potent remedies, ought to become one of our most powerful agents against many destructive diseases and mental disorders.

I would recommend it for the following affections:

Suicidal mania, accompanied with great fear of death, i. e., a powerful impulse to commit suicide owing to deep melancholy, but at the same time great fear and anxiety relating to 'death.

Chronic headaches due to syphilis, necrosis , 'periostitis, and ozoena, presenting a combination of the agonizing bone-pains of Gold with the intense neuralgic pains of Arsenic, especially after Iodide of potassa has failed.

Cancer of the face, nose, and uterus ought to come under its curative sphere. Also malignant diseases of the intestinal tract.

There is a large class of chronic diseases which seem to indicate both of these constituents, and we hesitate which to select. Here is a field for the application of this remedy.

It is best administered in the triturations from the 3X to 6\

To Dr. Chrestien is due the credit of being the first to use

a combination of Gold and Arsenic . Chrestien having

treated phthisical patients with the Chloride of gold and Arsenic alternately, immediately discovered the similarity of their action. The first applications in France were made by Dr. Massart, who administered the Arseniate of gold in cancer and in phthisis, and who had the honor of seeing his remarkable work approved by the Soeietes de Medecine of Lyons and Toulouse.

Italian and American observations have established beyond a

doubt that diseases, such as lupus, depending upon scrofula, are rapidly ameliorated and ultimately cured by the Arseniate of gold. The first effect of the Arseniate of gold is a rapid increase of appetite. As Harless, Biet, and Cazenave have already remarked, the peristaltic contractions of the stomach and intestine are excited, and absorption occurs with greater rapidity. The Arseniate of gold then directly involves the nutrition of the anatomical elements, and consequently exercises a direct effect upon the different varieties of anaemia and chlorosis.