| Description Of Item | A small cylindrical medicine vial with screw top lid; the label appears to read ‘Anti-constipation’ but there is a small tear running through the title, to the middle right of the bottle standing vertically. The vial is filled with a number of dark-black pills, which, according to the label, contain: extract of Cascara Sagrada 1 (gr.?), extract of Nux Vom. 1-8 gr., extract of Belladonna 1-8 gr., and powdered Ipecac. 1-8 gr. There is one other ingredient listed but this is ineligible due to another small tear and staining.
It seems that these pills would have been given to relieve constipation by acting as both a purgative and a relaxant for the nervous system; from a modern perspective, each ingredient is considered toxic. Cascara sagrada, or sacred bark, was known for centuries as a mild cathartic by the indigenous Mexican peoples of California where the bark’s small shrub is indigenous to, along with other parts of the Pacific coast. Externally ‘smooth’ and ‘gray’, and odourless, with a bitter-sweet taste, the bark was frequently used in the West in the 19th century for ‘habitual constipation’ and ‘hemorrhoidal troubles’ (Wolff, 1881, pp.12-13). According to Parke, Davis & Company, ‘patience’ (1885, p.9) was the key to success when using cascara sagrada as a laxative; otherwise, too much could ‘produce in some persons most violent and hydragogue catharsis’ (Wolff, 1881, p.13). Ipecacuanha was primarily used as an emetic as a result of its key alkaloid, emetia, brought to Paris from Brazil in the late 17th century and used by the physician Helvetius to treat dysentery at the French royal court. It was also used as a ‘gentle astringent’ in cases of relaxation, for fluor albus (abnormal vaginal discharge), ‘hooping’ cough, asthma, painful menstruation, and intermittent fever, as well as complaints of the stomach and ‘the bleeding piles’; it was also used as a powerful emetic in cases of poisoning (Buchan, 1809, pp.2-4).
Nux vomica and belladonna, on the other hand, affect the nervous system. The former, also known as the strychnine tree as a result of its large, strychnine filled seeds, has been used as a poison throughout history, and in the 19th century was utilised to treat ‘all diseases of debility’, such as paralysis of all kinds, palsy, incontinence of urine, feeble stomach, and tendency to sleep; it also causes ‘tetanic agitation’, which produces ‘striking’ spasms that only affect the paralysed half of the body (Magendie, 1827, pp.3-4). Belladonna, a member of the deadly nightshade family, has also been used for centuries as a poison, and was regarded in the 19th century as ‘a direct and powerful stimulant to the sympathetic nervous system’, as well as a diuretic, an ‘oxydising’ agent, a hypnotic anodyne (painkiller), and antispasmodic (Harley, 1869, p.244).
References
Buchan, A. P. (1809) ‘Advertisement’, in M. Daubenton, Observations on indigestion: in which is satisfactorily shewn the efficacy of ipecacuan, in relieving this, as well as its connected train of complaints peculiar to the decline of life, 1-4, London: J. Callow.
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.
Magendie, F. 1827. Formulary for the preparation and employment of many new medicines: such as the nux vomica, the salts of morphine, the Prussic acid, the strychnine, the veratrine, the alkalis of the cinchona, the emetine, the iodine, the iodide of mercury, the cyanide of potassium, the croton oil, the salts of gold, the salts of platina, &c. &c. Translated by J. Baxter. New York: Evans.
Parke, Davis & Company. 1885. Working bulletin for the scientific investigation of Cascara sagrada (Rhamnus purshianus). Detroit: Scientific Department, Parke, Davis & Co.
Wolff, L. 1881. Oleates and oleo-palmitates: Formic acid as an antiseptic; Cascara sagrada. Philadelphia: Merrihew and Lippert. |