Colonial North America: Countway Library of Medicine

368

Materia Medica

Stimulants

a dose of 20 grs. [grains] which had nearly killed her.

Sub Narcotica. These are articles are of a stimulating nature which possess something of a narcotic quality as Camphor but in which this quality so mixed with others as not to be distinguished.

Lauro Cerassus or Cherry Laurel. This is a species of Plumb, or cherry, the prunus Laurus Cerasus, is not the common laurel of this Country, they are different in their appearance and properties. Cullen calls this a sedative of the most powerfull kind. I have had no experience of its effects but what I have learned from books it is undoubtedly a stimulus, it has induced tetanus and other convulsive affections. Cullen says it acts differently upon the nerves from opium, he also says that its first effects are to induce sleep, but this is not the fact. Cullen says it destroys the mobility of the system, he also says and I believe it to be the case that no inflamation is to be found in the stomach of such animals as have been destroy’d by it, but their lungs are distended as are also their veins, it has been employ’d in practice, though from its being so violent a poison it would afford a usefull medicine, but one which must be employed with the utmost caution it has been employ’d in agues. Dr Darwin has known one leaf made into a tea given to a lady troubled with