Internally the medicament appears, when given in minute dose, to be both alterative and stimulant. It has been employed in a variety of diseases, and is, by no means, new, since as early as 1789 Crawford recommended it to be admin istered to scrofulous patients and applied as an ointment to scrofulous swellings of the neck: half a century later Walsh suggested it as a substitute for iodine in like eases. Cases of the cure of aneu rism by this salt have been reported in current medical literature.
Da Costa holds that in valvular disease of the heart it is both a general and cardiac tonic, "diminishing and relieving cardiac distress, increasing the tone of the blood-vessels, and producing diu resis; also that it is a remedy that can be taken for a long time without danger or disordering the stomach." This is denied, however, by Bardet, who also chronicles a death after ten days' use of the drug, in which but grain was in gested daily—total, 2 7, grains. This would indicate necessity for the greatest caution when administered internally.
Several writers have also lauded ba rium chloride in functional heart mala dies, but the evidence adduced is in conclusive. Brown-Sequard tried it in epilepsy with negative results; but it appeared to him to be of value in tetanus and paralysis agitans. Another author recommends it in diffuse and multiple cerebral sclerosis, but without even a suggestion as to the rationale thereof.
IL has been administered in various cutaneous diseases in doses of 'I, grain three times daily, and is said to cure the irritable forms of dry eczema after arsenic has failed. Mineral waters con taining barium salts have long enjoyed a reputation for efficacy in skin diseases.
Armstrong (Foster's "Practical Thera peutics").
Barium sulphocarbolate, like most sul phocarbolate salts, has been employed in the colliquative diarrhceas of children, especially those suffering from rachitis, and in gastrointestinal disturbances, but it is impossible, as yet, to draw conclu sions from the few incomplete reports that have been rendered.