Strychnia in Intermittent Fever. By 0. H. Edwards, M. D. of
Clinton, Summit County, Ohio.
To the Editor of the Medical Examiner:
Dear Sir :—I noticed in your last number of the Medical
Examiner, an article on the use of Strychnia in Intermittent Fever,
by S. E. McKinly, M. D. of Williamsport, Tenn., wherein he says,
“After having tested the various remedies used” in such cases,
“ none have proved so potent as Strychnos Nux Vomicathus
assuming it to be of more value than Quinine, for which he offers it
as a substitute. As my experience in the use of that article,
which has been considerable both in intermittent fever, and other
forms of disease, warrants no such conclusions, I offer you the his-
tory of a single case wherein I used it for a month without inter-
ruption.
Matthias Pool, aged 45 years; occupation farmer; has been sub-
ject to occasional attacks of circumorbital neuralgia for ten or
twelve years. In the attacks which he had suffered for the last
two years, I had been in the habit of bleeding him, and following
it with mercurial cathartic and quinine, which always relieved
him. As the attacks were becoming more frequent, I concluded
to try the virtues of strychnia, in the next. Accordingly in
the Spring of 1849, as he applied to me in an attack he was
then laboring under, I bled him and gave him a mercurial car-
thartic, and put him on Tr. Strychnia, 40 minims* three times a
day, to be gradually increased until the specific effects of the medi-
cine should be experienced.
In consequence of his increasing the dose slowly, it was not until
after he had used it four weeks, that he experienced the effects ris-
ing from the internal administration of full doses of that article.
After it had occasioned nervous twitchings and involuntary muscu-
lar contractions, the dose was continued without being in-
creased for three days—when having in a measure recovered
from his neuralgia, it was thought best to interrupt its effects, and
the strychnia was discontinued for a few days.
Upon the following day he had a regular shake of the ague—
which was treated with quinine during the two subsequent inter-
*We presume Tr. Nucis Vomicae is meant here, there being no officinal Tr.
Strychniae.—Ed.
missions, with the effect of removing the disease. I mention this
case because of the notoriety that strychnia has of late ob-
tained as a curative agent in the treatment of intermittent fever.
Mr. Pool had not had intermittent fever for fifteen years preced-
ing the attack to which I have referred, so that it was no case of
relapse.
I had been using strychnia in a number of cases of intermittent
fever previous to that time, both by itself and in conjunction with
quinine, but never had been able to discover any virtues in it,
and in the treatment of that disease, and after witnessing its
effects in this particulur instance, I abandoned the hope of
finding in it a subsitute for quinine.