American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy

Therapy—A teaspoonful of mustard in a bowl of warm water will produce
active and immediate emesis. This should be followed by another bowl of
warm water alone, which will continue the evacuation and wash out any
remaining mustard, as even then the burning sensation from the local
effects of this substance with a few patients is hard to bear. Emesis must
be obtained as soon as possible after the ingestion of the mustard. An
emetic dose must not be allowed to remain in the stomach, as
inflammation may follow.
Mustard has but little therapeutic influence when administered
internally. It does not seem to increase the tone of the gastro-intestinal
canal, or promote the action of the secretory or excretory glands, or
assimilative organs, to any great extent, but its external use is common.
In the treatment of acute pleuritis a warm poultice applied over the
affected side sufficiently large to much more than cover the diseased
area, will usually relieve the pain at once, and a large poultice is always
more effective than a small one. It may be necessary to repeat its
application within twenty-four hours, but if vigorous direct treatment is
adopted, this is seldom necessary.
In bronchitis or pneumonitis in the initiatory stages, a quick poultice of
mustard will exercise a good influence, but it does not give the immediate
relief experienced in pleuritis or pneumonitis where acute pain is a
prominent symptom. It should be followed, in the former conditions, as
soon as the sensitiveness of the skin will allow, by persistent heat, moist
or dry, as seems indicated.
In acute pain in the heart, either in angina pectoris or from other cause a
sharp mustard poultice is essential.
In acute stomach pains and in intestinal colic, or pain in the abdomen
from any cause, a large hot mustard poultice will be of much service. In
all cases where mustard is used it is only auxiliary to other prompt
treatment, as its influence is usually transient.
A most efficient measure in congestive headache, or in headache from
any cause with fullness of the cerebral vessels, is a mustard poultice on
the nape of the neck.
Spinal irritation is most effectively treated by the use of a succession of
Ellingwood’s American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy - Page 405