Colonial North America: Countway Library of Medicine

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Materia Medica

Errhines Sialagogues

nose to a considerable degree. Mr Ware in Gutta Serena gave such a dose of the Euphorbium as to produce Hemorrhagy. I have employ’d it in cataplasms as a rubefacient. Mr Boyle has known it to cure two cataracts by giving it in snuff, he may have been deceived but this is not improbable it would act as a stimulus to the sympathetics.

White Hellebore. Is an extremely powerfull stimulant.

Helenium Autumnale. This is a native of the United States. In Virginia it is known by the name of sneeze weed, it has yellow flowers and comes forth in autumn. Apply’d to the nose it produces greater effects than the same quantity of snuff, it would make a good Medical Snuff.

White Vitriol. A solution of Vit. Alba snuffed up the nose is said to act as an errhine, but I have never used it, in my opinion these medicines have been too much neglected they have been found usefull in Incipient cases of catarrh, in tooth ache &c. Sneezing is often a favorable symptom in some diseases when produced by nature.

Sialogogues. By this term we mean such medicines as produce a discharge from the Salivary glands, they are divided into external and internal sialogogues, the external sialogogues are such substances as when applied to the mouth stimulate the glands and induce them to discharge, the internal are