(seq. 605)

598

Materia Medica

Emmenagogues

has been employ’d to produce abortion from which circumstance in some
countries it is forbidden to be sold. Some mischief is done in this City by
employing it for the above purposes. About 5 years ago I was called to visit
the wife of a respectable man who was in the second stage of Phthisis
Pulmonalis, she was not old, and still handsome, she was a few
months under my care and informed me she imparted her illness to an
iniquitous mode of proceeding, she always suffered much in
parturition and to escape the sufferings in future, she had permitted herself
to be persuaded by an old woman to take the savin by which means
she had induced three successive abortions, she took it in large
doses ℥fs [½ ounce] of the leaves made into a strong tea and said that it
acted violently. the powder of the dry’d leaves of savin is a good
escharotic, and it is a good application to warts especially venerial ones. the
following is the position of the ointment

Rx
Pulv. Fol. Sabina }
Sub Acetate of Copper } aa Ʒi [1 dram of each]

Intimately mixed and rubbed on the
part. The medium dose of the Sabina
is from 20 to 30 grs [grains] of the dry’d leaves, commencing with 15 grs [grains] &
increasing to Ʒi [1 dram] three times a day, when purging supervenes I
combine a small quantity of opium and lessen the dose of sabina.
The leaves of the Red Cedar have been used it is said with all the benifit
of this medicine.