American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy

essential importance in the reduction of high temperatures, but the
conditions and character of its action were so imperfectly understood
that it often did harm, and caused an increase in the temperature instead
of a reduction. In the regular school the coal tar antipyretics have
replaced it. With our own school it has been at no time depended upon to
allay fever.
As a restorative after pneumonia, where hepatization has been extensive,
this agent is an important one. Two grains of the bisulphate of quinine,
with one-fourth of a grain of ipecac, and perhaps the one-fourth of a grain
of nux vomica, will rapidly improve the function of the nervous system and
of the circulation, and as rapidly overcome the hepatization and other
results of inflammatory action. The influence upon the stomach and
intestinal canal, and thus upon the digestion and assimilation of food, is
marked and immediate.
Quinine is a stimulant tonic of great value. Its influence is exercised to
the best possible advantage when there is impaired or deficient nerve
force.
It is indicated as a restorative after prostrating disease, especially after
continued and inflammatory fevers. It strengthens the action of the heart,
improving the character of the circulation of every organ. It arouses the
digestive organs and encourages assimilation and nutrition. It
stimulates the liver and kidneys, and thus assists in the rapid
elimination of the waste products of the disease. It stimulates the
respiratory function, promoting oxygenation of the blood, thus assisting
in the restoration of the character of that fluid.
These results are accomplished largely through its profoundly
stimulating influence upon the cerebral and spinal centers.
It has been the writer's custom to use the bisulphate of quinine as a tonic
instead of the sulphate, because of its free solution and rapid absorption.
It is milder in its effects upon the nerve centers and fully as efficacious
in its tonic influence. It is combined to excellent advantage with
hydrastine, nux vomica or the salts of iron.
Or it may be given with strychnine or picrotoxin or ignatia with excellent
results, and if liver complications exist, it may be combined with
leptandrin, podophyllin or iris.
Ellingwood’s American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy - Page 130