| Description Of Item | A small cylindrical medicine vial with screw top lid labelled ‘Tonsillitis’. The vial is filled with a number of greyish pills that, according to the label, contain: Tr. Aconite 1-5 gtt., Tr. Belladonna 1-10 gtt., Tr. Bryonia 1-10 gtt., and Red Mercuric Iodine 1-100 gr.
Aconite, also known as wolf’s-bane and monk’s-hood, was used in the 19th century as a ‘stimulant to the sympathetic system of nerves’ (Pierce, 1880, p.353) to treat conditions such as glandular swellings, gout, rheumatism, venereal disease, fever, and convulsive disorders (Thacher, 1817, p.130). A perennial native to the mountainous parts of France and Switzerland (Thacher, 1817, p.130), both the root and leaves are toxic, leaving a tingling numbness to the lips; this toxicity led to the plant being regarded as a ‘powerful poison’ by the ‘ancients’ (Hall, 1874, p.366) and, as such, it required particular care when being manufactured for medicinal use, needing to be ‘gathered before the stem shoots’, and losing efficacy depending on heat used in preparation, as well as age – a fresh specimen could incite too violent an action, while one over a year old became totally inert (Thacher, 1817, p.130). This violent action, also induced by taking too much, was capable of producing ‘sickness, vomiting, diarrhoea, giddiness, delirium, fainting, cold sweats, convulsions and death’ (Thacher, 1817, p.130). The plant also proved fatal in summer when its odour would cause sickness and fainting, and sometimes even killed the ‘sickly feeble people’ and children who went near it (Hall, 1874, p.366).
Belladonna was also used as a ‘direct and powerful stimulant to the sympathetic nervous system’, and was administered as a diuretic, oxidising agent, anodyne, and antispasmodic (Harley, 1869, p.244). In small doses, bryonia was used to relieve ‘excitation of the sympathetic nervous system’, diminish ‘the frequency of the pulse’, and relieve temperature; in large doses, however, it acts as a purgative upon the bowels, inducing a deep sense of anxiety – if too much is taken, ‘the pulse becomes feeble and frequent, respiration difficult, the temperature falls, the mind wanders, and death ensues from collapse’ (Scudder, 1891, p.291). This ‘biting’ plant, found in woods and hedges, is ‘purgative, hydragogue, emmenagogue, and diuretic’, and was primarily administered as a cathartic to evacuate ‘serious humours’ but also used to treat chronic illnesses such as asthma, ‘mania’, and epilepsy (Hooper, 1826, p.175). Both aconite and bryonia were known for their ability to treat constriction and inflammatory conditions of the heart (Buchanan, 1868, p.101), and in conjunction with belladonna and mercuric iodine - the latter of which was one of many popular mercurial medicines used throughout the 18th and 19th centuries to treat conditions such as syphilis, despite side effects that damaged the gums, limbs, and immune system - this drug would probably have been prescribed for tonsillitis in order to reduce fever, high pulse, and pain.
References
Buchanan, J. 1868. The American Practice of Medicine. Philadelphia: J. Buchanan.
Hall, W, W. 1874. Health at home, or, Hall's family doctor: showing how to invigorate and preserve health, prolong life, cure diseases, understand the physical conditions of maternity and the proper management of infants, and discussing the entire physical well-being of man, with a very large collection of the latest and most valuable medical prescriptions. Hartford: Betts.
Harley, J. 1869. The old vegetable neurotics: hemlock, opium, belladonna and henbane; their physiological action and therapeutical use, alone and in combination being the Gulstonian Lectures of 1868, extended and including a complete examination of the active constituents of opium. London: Macmillan.
Hooper, R. 1826. Lexicon-medicum, or, Medical dictionary: containing an explanation of the terms in anatomy, botany, chemistry, materia medica, midwifery, mineralogy, pharmacy, physiology, practice of physic, surgery, and the various branches of natural philosophy connected with medicine: selected, arranged, and compiled, from the best authors. New York: J. & J. Harper.
Pierce, R, V. 1880. The people's common sense medical adviser in plain English: or, Medicine simplified. Buffalo: World’s Dispensary Printing Office and Bindery.
Scudder, J, M. 1891. The American eclectic materia medica and therapeutics. Cincinnati: J. M. Scudder.
Thacher, J. 1817. The American new dispensatory: containing general principles of pharmaceutic chemistry ; chemical analysis of the articles of materia medica ; pharmaceutic operations; materia medica, including several new and valuable articles, the production of the United States ; preparations and compositions ; with an appendix, containing an account of mineral waters ; medical prescriptions ; the nature and medical uses of the gases ; medical electricity ; galvanism ; an abridgment of Dr. Currie's reports on the use of water ; the cultivation of the poppy plant, and the method of preparing opium ; and several useful tables ; the whole compiled from the most approved authors, both European and American. Boston: Thomas B. Wait and Sons.
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