Colonial North America: Countway Library of Medicine

216

Materia Medica

Tonic

a gleet of however long standing = the carbonate of Iron in this disease is the most efficacious.

Amenorrhea. Or Suppression of the menses, this depends upon two causes, first upon a considerable tone of the vessels attended with increased fever and frequency of the pulse, pain in the head, back and loins, with wild starting eyes every time the menses ought to appear = and secondly upon debility of the system generally or a debility of the ovary vessels, the last is the most frequent, cases, of the menses in the first species, Iron would do much harm and increase the complaint particularly in some cases of Febris Alba. For here bleeding, and purging, ought to be employ'd = but in the second species or that depending on debility, the preparations of Iron are of manifest service, and should never be omitted; when combined with savin the Iron proves more usefull = the preparations of Iron in a metallic or oxid state are the most useful.

Hemorrhage. These as I have already observed are of two kinds active and passive, in the former the preparations of this mineral is always injurious, but in the latter they are always serviceable, the use of Iron in Hemorrhagies is of Antient [ancient] date, Pliny the naturalist