American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy

patient up, placing her in an excellent condition to pass through the
labor with full strength. The uterus contracts promptly after the second
and third stages, and the use of ergot is entirely dispensed with. The
often observed chilliness or rigors which, in the majority of cases
immediately follow labor, have been noticed in but few cases. These
rigors, little account of which can be found in textbooks, are nothing
more or less than surgical shock. This is obviated by the
prophylactic—strychnine. He believes that as phosphorus and strychnine
are remedies used in the treatment of rachitis with good results they are
indicated during the gestation of the rachitic fetus.
A wide field of action is open to this compound, as prostration from real
deficiency of the nerve elements, prominent among which is phosphorus,
is a common condition among very many, especially among brain
workers. The strychnia lifts the forces up to the normal point, and the
phosphorus permanently holds them there by its restorative influence.
Strychnine Arsenate.
Administration— The dose is from the 1/200 to 1/50 of a grain, usually
administered in pill form. In granules of 1/120 of a grain the agent is
convenient of administration and prompt in its action.
Specific Symptomatology—Hale says arsenic acts upon the glandular
system, and fluids of the body, while strychnine acts upon the nervous
system. He advises it where the nutritive and glandular systems are
involved to any great extent, with implication of the nervous system at the
same time. This is found in paresis or mild forms of paralysis with edemic
tissues, sodden, relaxed muscular structures, with anemia and tendency
to dropsical conditions; great nervous weakness or prostration, with
marked blood dyscrasia, chronic glandular induration, chronic
ulceration, and the conditions of the mucous surfaces of the intestinal
canal following typhus or typhoid fever and dysentery.
It is specifically indicated in the debility or nerve failure of the aged, and
in the prostrating influence of severe disease in children. During severe
fevers it will not antagonize the sedative influence of the antipyretics, but
will brace the nervous system against the prostration that will follow
when the fever is gone.
It antagonizes vasomotor paralysis in all cases. In spasmodic affections it
Ellingwood’s American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy - Page 428