Note 555 — PHARMACOLOGIA. (continued 5)

Mrs. Stephen’s Remedy for the Stone consisted of lime, which was produced by calcining the shells of eggs and snails, and made into pills with Soap. A decoction was also administered, consisting of Chamomile, Fennel, Parsley and Burdock, together with a portion of Alicant Soap. This is a very rational practice, and is very much what the practitioners of the present day depend upon: the observations of Mrs. Stephens respecting their administration, are equally judicious. “If,” says she, “these medicines produce pain, it will be necessary to give an opiate with them, and it must be at all times a principal care to prevent a looseness, for if this should happen it would carry off the medicines; under such circumstances the quantity of the Decoction, since it is laxative, must be diminished, and other suitable means must be taken by the advice of a Physician.” The credit of introducing alkaline medicines for the cure of calculous disorders, does not however rest with Mrs. Stephens. It has been before stated in this work, that Basil Valentine employed a fixed alkaline salt in such cases; and I may here add, that Sennertus, in his Praxis Medica, mentions a lithonthryptic that was in great esteem and general use in his time, which consisted of one ounce of Salt of Tartar dissolved in a pint of parsley water, and afterwards tinged yellow with orange peel.