Cooley's Cyclopaedia of Practical Receipts Volume I Part 159

In the treatment of the constipation of infants, castor-oil (1/2 teaspoonful occasionally), or manna 1/4 to 1/2 oz., sucked at will, may be given. The introduction (very gently) of a little slip of writing paper, parsley stalk, or suet, is a method sometimes adopted successfully by nurses. Friction on the stomach and bowels with the warm hand, or a piece of soft flannel, should also be employed. See GALL, PURGATIVE, &c.

_Treatment for Animals._ Mr Finlay Dun prescribes laxative clysters, aloes, or oils. Calomel for horses; croton and gamboge for cattle. Salts, calomel and jalap, castor oil, linseed oil, and emetics for carnivora. Oil of turpentine by mouth or r.e.c.t.u.m; clysters of tobacco, nux vomica, electricity.

_Treatment for Horses._ When the animal is constipated administer 4 dr. of aloes and 1 dr. of calomel, rubbed down with gruel; inject soap and water every hour, taking care to let the horse have walking exercise, and to apply friction to the belly. If, after twelve hours, no effect is produced, let the aloes and calomel be repeated, with the addition of three or four drops of croton oil and a wine-gla.s.sful of spirit of nitre, ether, gin, or whisky.

=CONSt.i.tUTION b.a.l.l.s=, Vegetable (A. H. Boldt). Two parallelopiped hard brown b.a.l.l.s, each of which weighs 58 grammes, and is made by melting together 2 parts of aloes and 1 part coa.r.s.ely powdered gentian. (Hager).

=CONSUMP'TION.= See PHTHISIS.

=CONTA'GION.= By 'contagion' is usually meant the communication of disease by means either of actual contact or through a medium, such as the air. By some a contagious disease is regarded as one arising from direct contact only, in contradistinction to an infectious one, which is believed to act at a distance. See DISINFECTANT.

=CONTU'SION.= A hurt, or injury to the flesh, such as might be caused by a blunt instrument or by a fall, without breach or apparent wound. For treatment, see BRUISE.

=CONVALESCENCE.= Convalescence may be described as the period between the cessation of an attack of serious illness and the restoration, if not to a perfect, to an accustomed state of health. Convalescent patients should particularly guard against excess in eating or drinking, or unnecessary and imprudent exposure to cold or damp weather, during this interval, as well as against premature exertion of the limbs or voice; such and all of which are acts of imprudence that may give rise to a return of the disease. In order to avoid this latter risk, as well as to aid in complete recovery, repose both of body and mind are generally needed, more particularly in the earlier stages of convalescence.

It should be borne in mind that convalescents from many infectious diseases, such as measles, scarlet fever, smallpox, typhus, &c., are much more likely to propagate these diseases than when they are labouring under them in the acute form. During the period of their recovery the skin and other organs are throwing off the poison in large quant.i.ties, and thus exposing those in contact with, or in the near neighbourhood of the convalescent, to the great and imminent risk of contagion. Even if not contagious himself, the convalescent's clothes, if they be the same as those worn by him during his illness, may also convey the disease.

=CONVULSIONS.= Spasmodic contractions of the muscles producing motions of the limbs, generally accompanied with unconsciousness. Convulsions occur at all periods of life, but in adults they are only symptoms of other diseases. In children they are very common. They are of frequent occurrence in teething; and a swollen and inflamed state of the gums is said to excite them. Dr Gardner, in his very useful work, 'Household Medicine,' says they may be brought on by "improper food, _e.g._ the milk of a nurse suffering from some violent emotion. At the siege of Berlin nearly all the suckling children died of convulsions." They may also be induced by feverish attacks, hooping-cough, strong purgatives, or suppressed eruptions. In the case of a dangerous attack of convulsion no time should be lost in sending for a medical pract.i.tioner. Pending his arrival, the patient should be placed as promptly as possible in a hot-water bath. A better plan is to loosen all the dress, to place the child across the arms, and sway it up and down gently, and to allow cool air to play on the face and chest; give an enema of soap and water, and apply mustard plasters for a few seconds only to the pit of the stomach.

If these fail to give relief, apply leeches (number according to the age) to the temples, and cold to the head. Lance the gums if inflamed. When the fit is over keep the head cool. If there have been white stools, give a grain or two of calomel, and repeat it every three or four hours for three or four times until the stools become green or dark. Keep the bowels open by castor oil, and let the patient be put on a milk diet. The latter part of the above treatment is inserted for the benefit of the emigrant or other individual having no means of obtaining proper medical aid.

=COPAHINE.= Copaiba balsam made into a ma.s.s with wax and powdered cubebs, divided into hard egg-shaped pills weighing 5 decigrammes each and sugar coated.

=COPAHINE MEGE DE JOZEAU.= A fixed quant.i.ty of copaiba balsam is mixed with concentrated nitric acid, and constantly stirred as long as effervescence continues. The oxidised balsam is then washed, first with warm then with cold water, till the washings cease to have an acid reaction. From one part of this balsamum copaivae acido nitrico corr.e.c.t.u.m with 1/10 part powdered cubebs, 1/10 part bicarbonate of soda, 1/16 part calcined magnesia, with some mucilage, a ma.s.s is prepared and divided into oval pills, which are afterwards coated with sugar, mixed with gum and carmine.

=COPAI'BA.= _Syn._ COPAI'VA, COPAIVA BALSAM, CAPIV'I, BALSAM OF CAPIV'I; COPAI'BA (Ph. L. E. & D.), L.; BAUME DE COPAHU, Fr.; COBAIVA BALSAM, Ger.

"The oleo-resin, of a brown colour, obtained by incision from the trunk of Copaifera multijuga." (B. P.) Most of the balsam of commerce is obtained from Para and Maranhao. It is packed in casks containing from 1 to 1-1/2 cwt. each, or in large bottles, or in cylindrical tin boxes.

_Prop., Purific., &c._ Copaiba, though usually called a 'balsam,' is not correctly so named, as it contains no benzoic or cinnamic acid. It is correctly described in the B. P. as an 'oleo-resin.' Considerable variation exists in the colour, odour, consistence, and transparency, as well as in the proportion of oil and resin yielded by different samples, scarcely any two of which exactly agree. The sp. gr. varies from 950 to 996. Brazilian copaiba is thin, clear, and pale; whilst the West Indian variety is thick, golden yellow, less transparent, and has a less agreeable and somewhat terebinthinate smell. Some varieties are opaque, and continue so unless filtered. This is often a most troublesome operation. The opacity generally arises from the presence of water, which it retains with great tenacity. The following is the plan we have found to answer on the large scale:--Place the casks upon their ends in a warm situation, and leave them so for 10 days or a fortnight, or longer, if convenient. They may then be tapped a little above the bottom, when the contents of some of them will generally be found quite transparent, and may be drawn off and vatted, care being taken to avoid shaking up the bottom. The copaiva that remains foul must be filtered through one or more long Canton flannel bags, sunk in the bottom of a tin cistern, placed over a suitable receiver, in a similar way to that adopted for oils; a few pounds of coa.r.s.ely powdered charcoal being mixed up with the first 5 or 6 gallons thrown in. This will rapidly fill up the pores of the bag, and make the balsam soon flow clear and pale. The "bottoms" of the casks, containing the water and impurities, may be poured into a large can or jar, and allowed to settle for a few days, when the copaiba may be poured off the top and filtered. A sudden change of temperature will frequently turn a transparent sample of this article opaque or milky; it is not, therefore, deemed fit to send out by the wholesale trade, unless it stands this test. To ascertain this point a common practice is to fill a small bottle with the copaiba, and to leave it out of doors all night in an exposed situation.

_Pur., Tests, &c._ This substance is frequently adulterated; indeed, fully one half that sold for copaiba does not contain 10% of the genuine balsam.

This is particularly the case with that sold in capsules, at low prices, in the shops. Pure balsam of copaiba may be recognised by the following characters:--

1. (Ph. E.) It is transparent; free of turpentine odour when heated; soluble in 2 parts of alcohol; and dissolves one fourth of its weight of carbonate of magnesia with the aid of a gentle heat, and continues translucent.

2. (Chevallier.) A drop of the balsam, placed on a piece of unsized paper, and heated until all the essential oil is expelled, forms a semi-transparent, well-defined spot; but if the balsam has been adulterated with a fatty oil, it is surrounded by an oily areola.

3. (Planche.) 2-1/2 parts of balsam shaken with 1 part of solution of ammonia, sp. gr. 965, forms a mixture which becomes clear and transparent in a few moments, and may be heated to 212 Fahr. without becoming opaque.

4. (Vigne.) Boiled with 50 times its weight of water for 1 hour, it should lose at least half its weight.

5. (Adder.) By agitating the suspected sample with a lye of caustic soda, and setting the mixture aside to repose, the balsam after a time rises to the surface, and the fatty oil present (if any) forms a soapy, thick ma.s.s below.

6. ('Journ. de Pharm.,' 1842.) Pure copaiba may be adulterated with 50 per cent. of a fat oil (nut, almond, or castor oil), without it ceasing to give a clear solution with 2 parts of alcohol; but it combines badly with magnesia and ammonia. Excess of alcohol, however, separates the oil in all cases. It was formerly considered that the best test for detecting the fat oils was pure alcohol, to which some caustic potash had been added.

7. (Dr Hager.) Copaiba which is adulterated with Gurgun balsam is not quite clear, and frequently exhibits prisms of gurginic acid under the microscope. The author states that the adulteration may be easily detected by mixing the suspected sample with four volumes of petroleum ether; the mixture at once becomes turbid, and gradually deposits a sediment, which, after half an hour's settling, occupies the same volume as the copaiba operated upon. A mixture of pure copaiba with petroleum ether is clear at first, and either remains clear upon standing or it deposits after several hours a very slight sediment, which merely covers the bottom of the test tube like a thin film. Benzol may be used in place of petroleum ether.

8. (Muter.) Three to four grams of the sample are weighed into a clean, dry flask, and saponified on the water bath with 50 c. c. of alcohol, and a lump of caustic soda weighing not less than 5 grams. When all is dissolved water is added, and the whole washed into a half-pint basin, so as to nearly fill it, and evaporated to 100 c. c. over a low gas flame.

Dilute sulphuric acid is then added till the whole just becomes permanently turbid, and then solution of caustic soda is dropped in till it just clears again. By this means a solution is obtained with the least possible excess of alkali, and with a good amount of sodium sulphate. The whole is now to be evaporated to _perfect dryness_ on the water bath, stirring towards the end, so that the sulphate may mix with the soaps, and produce an easy pulverulent residue. The residue is moved from the basin into a small, wide-mouthed, stoppered bottle, treated with 70 c. c. of ether-alcohol, and well shaken up. As soon as it is fairly settled the fluid is filtered off through a _quick_ filter, and this is repeated with two successive quant.i.ties of 70 c. c., making 210 c. c. in all of the solvent used. The residue in the bottle and in the filter now consists of sodium oleate and sulphate if the balsam be impure, and of the latter only if pure, with a little trace of the insoluble resin soap already referred to. The contents of the bottle and filter are then dissolved in warm water, and after heating until all smell of ether is gone the whole is boiled freely acidulated with hydrochloric acid, and set to cool.

If, when cold, nothing but a few specks of brown resin should rise to the surface, the balsam is pure; but if an oily layer be formed it is adulterated, and the smell of the separated oleic acid will at once determine whether it is actually castor oil or not.

In the case of the presence of oil, 2 grams of pure and dry white wax are added, and the whole heated till the wax melts with the oleic acid. On cooling, a solid cake is formed, which is detached from the side of the beaker, and the fluid below pa.s.sed through a filter. The cake is once more melted in boiling water, cooled, detached, dried by gentle pressure between blotting paper, dried in a water-oven in a weighed platinum dish, and then weighed, and the weight of the wax used deducted. The beaker, filter, rod, &c., used are, if at all dirty, dried, extracted with ether, and the residue left, after evaporation, weighed and added to the total.

The calculation is then performed as follows:--

(1.) To the weight in grams found add 20 for loss of oleic acid in solvent, and then say as 95 : 100 :: total oleic acid.

(2.) Calculate the per-centage from the quant.i.ty taken, and from this deduct 6 per cent. for possible altered resin in the balsam. The error, owing to the correction, of course, increases with the amount of oil present; but it is stated to be always an error in the direction of under-estimation, which is the great point for public a.n.a.lysts. When working on 3 to 4 grains with an admixture of not over 25 per cent. the errors due to loss of oleic acid and insoluble resin soap are said to so nearly balance each other, that any correction is unnecessary, and the actual amount of oleic acid found may be taken as correct within a per cent.

9. (B. P.) According to the British Pharmacopia, copaiba should be soluble in an equal bulk of benzol.

10. (The evaporation test.) Mr Siebold says: "This is an excellent and exceedingly simple test, but is clumsily applied by many. Instead of boiling the balsam with water for many hours, a small quant.i.ty (about 1 to 15 gram) of the sample should be carefully heated in a watch-gla.s.s until all the oil is driven off, which is the case as soon as the residue has a.s.sumed a rich brown colour. A few minutes suffice for the experiment.

"If the remaining resin is perfectly brittle and pulverisable there is no fatty matter present, for 1 per cent. of oil would diminish the brittleness of the resin, so that it cannot be reduced to a fine powder.

One per cent. of oil is thus readily detected, and with larger quant.i.ties of the adulterant (3 to 5 per cent.) the resin feels quite sticky.

"On heating the resin castor oil and linseed oil may be distinguished by the odour. By mixing the adulterated balsam with ten, twenty, forty, and fifty volumes of pure maranham balsam respectively, and testing each dilution in this manner, it is easy to find in which the oil has been reduced to below 1 per cent., and thus to ascertain whether the adulterant amounted to more than 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 per cent., and this, I think, would be sufficiently near the mark for the purpose of public a.n.a.lysts."

_Uses, &c._ Balsam of copaiba is considered detersive vulnerary, diuretic, and astringent; and appears to possess a sort of specific power over diseases of the mucous membranes of the urino-genital organs. It is hence a favourite remedy in gonorrha, as soon as the first inflammatory symptoms have subsided, antiphlogistic and soothing measures being previously adopted. _Dose_, 20 to 60 drops on sugar, floating on water, or made into an emulsion with yolk of egg or gum arabic, 3 or 4 times daily, if the stomach will bear it. The addition of a few drops of sweet spirits of nitre and laudanum have been recommended, to allay the nausea. By adding 1 dr. of oil of orange (ol. aurantii) to each oz. of the balsam, its flavour becomes far from disagreeable, and it sits well upon the stomach. Copaiba is also given in capsules and pills. See CAPSULES, EMULSION, OIL, PILLS, &c.

_Obs._ Numerous preparations of this article are sold under such names as 'soluble copaiba,' 'specific solution,' 'salt of copaiba,' &c.; none of these appear to possess equal activity and certainty of operation to the natural balsam. As the whole virtue of copaiba as a medicine depends on the essential oil it contains, the value of any of these preparations may be estimated by the quant.i.ty of that article which is found in them. In the case of the first two articles above named the quant.i.ty is very small indeed, and in the last it is wholly deficient.

The following forms are current in the trade for the reduction (adulteration) of balsam of capivi:--

1. Balsam of copaiba, 4 lbs.; castor oil, 3 lbs.; mix well.

2. Balsam, 7 lbs.; castor oil, 4 lbs; yellow resin, 2 lbs.

3. Equal parts of balsam of copaiba and Canada balsam.

4. To the last add Venice turpentine, 1 lb.

5. Balsams of Canada and copaiba and nut or castor oil, equal parts.

6. Copaiba, 7 lbs.; nut oil, 3 lbs.; yellow resin, 2 lbs.; Canada balsam, 1 lb. Used to fill the cheap capsules; and to sell in the lower parts of London and in the manufacturing districts. See also COPAIBA, FACt.i.tIOUS (_below_).

=Copaiba, Facti"tious.= _Syn._ COBAI'BA FACTI"TIA, BAL'SAMUM COPAI'Bae FACTI"TIUM, L. _Prep._ 1. Castor oil (warm), 7 quarts; copaiba bottoms, 1 quart; mix, and filter through flannel.

2. Castor, oil, 1 gal.; yellow resin, 3 lbs.; Canada balsam, 2 lbs.; oil of juniper, 2 oz.; oil of savin, 1 oz.; essences of orange and lemon, of each 1/2 oz.; powdered benzoin, 1 oz.; melt the resin with the castor oil and benzoin, and when nearly cold add the essences.

3. Canada balsam, 9 lbs.; castor oil, 7 lbs.; yellow resin, 1 lb.; Venice turpentine, 2 lbs.; oils of rosemary, juniper, and savin, of each 1 dr.; essential oil of almonds, 20 drops.

4. Canada balsam, 3 lb.; Venice turpentine, 1 lb.; oils of fennel, juniper, and savin, of each q. s.

Used chiefly to fill capsules. It is readily distinguished from balsam of copaiba by the proper tests. (See _above_.) Train oil or nut oil is frequently subst.i.tuted for the castor oil.

=Copaiba and Ka'li.= _Syn._ COPAIBA c.u.m POTa.s.sa, L. _Prep._ Carbonate of pota.s.sa and water, of each, equal parts; dissolve, and add gradually, transparent balsam of copaiba, until the fluid, at first milky, turns quite clear. Resembles miscible copaiba (see _below_).

=Copaiba, Miscible.= _Prep._ From balsam of copaiba (pure and transparent), mixed with half its volume of solution of pota.s.sa made of double the strength ordered in the B. P.