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482 DENTAL MEDICINE.

white powder of a very bitter taste, almost insoluble in water,
and very soluble in boiling alcohol.
Sulphate of Strychnine.— Strychnines Sulphas— is a white
salt in the form of colorless prismatic crystals, which are very
bitter and odorless, soluble in ten parts of water, somewhat so in
alcohol, but insoluble in ether.
Medical Properties and Therapeutic Uses.—Nux vomica and
strychnine are bitter stomachic and muscular tonics. In small
doses strychnine increases the gastro-intestinal secretions, hastens
intestinal movements, and elevates arterial tension. In larger
doses the pupils are dilated and the muscles spasmodically con-
tracted. Poisonous doses cause muscular tremors, intermittent
tetanic spasms, and death from rigidity of the respiratory muscles,
without any impairment of the mind.
Poisonous quantities of strychnine accumulate in the system,
on account of the agent being slowly excreted, from very small
doses frequently administered. The antidotes are free evacuation
of the stomach, vegetable astringents to precipitate the strychnine,
and the inhalation of ether or chloroform, and the hypodermic
injection of chloral. Strychnine is employed in anemia, atonic
dvspepsia, constipation, vomiting of pregnancy, gastralgia, gastric
catarrh, etc., of drunkards, chlorosis, purpura, hemorrhagic dia-
thesis, local paralysis, poisoning by lead, spasmodic asthma, etc.,
etc. Nux vomica is an antidote to chloral, and is used in in-
termittent fever as an adjunct to quinine. Brucine is much
weaker than strychnine, but similar in its action, and the pure
agent is analogous to cocaine, possessing local anaesthetic prop-
erties. For hypodermic injection it is resorted to in paraplegia,
infantile paralysis, facial paralysis, etc., and also in diseases of
the eye, and infraorbital paralysis. A half grain of strychnine
has produced a fatal result, and one-twelfth of a grain will pro-
duce muscular twitchings, and one-sixteenth of a grain has proved
fatal in the case of a child.
•, of Extractum
Dose.—Of Abstractum nucis vomica., gr. ^ nucis
; of Extractum nucis vomica fluidum., ITlj to
vomicee., gr. \ to gr. \
v ; of Tinctura nucis vomica., Ttlv to x ; of Strychnina., gr. ^-^ to
jijj ; of Strychnina Sulphas., gr. -^^ to ^i^ ; of Brucine., gr. to \.