BRONCHIAL AFFECTIONS.—Caffeine is valuable in bronchial asthma and in bron chitis associated with spasm of the chial tubes. When a paroxysm of asthma is present, Skerritt gives 5 grains of the citrate of caffeine every four hours until relief follows. When the attacks come on regularly in the early morning, a dose of 5 or 10 grains at bed-time often serves to avert them. No ill effects have fol lowed the treatment, even when con tinued for years. The drug sometimes causes slight wakefulness, but, as a rule, patients go to sleep without difficulty after the nightly dose of 5 or 10 grains.
CEPHALALGIA.—The various forms of headache, dependent upon nervous ex haustion, and the migraine of neuro pathic subjects, are generally relieved by effervescent citrate of caffeine. It may be advantageously combined with anti pyrine or the bromides.
COICHICUM.—Colchicuin autuninale, or "meadow-saffron," is a native of Eu rope and Great Britain, and constitutes a remedy of great repute abroad, though in America it, of late years, has fallen largely into disuse, not through any lack of intrinsic therapeutic worth, but be cause of the number of new substitutes offered. Indeed, the drug appears to have passed entirely out of the recollec tion of the majority of teachers, as they are so unfamiliar therewith as to deny it proper attention.
Both the bulb of the root (corm) and seeds are employed medicinally, and any choice between the two probably lies with the former, inasmuch as it yields more of the alkaloid colchicine. The corm is about one inch long, ovoid, flattish, with a groove on one side, wrinkled and of brownish hue, internally white and solid; inodorous, with sweet ish, bitter, acrid taste. It often appears as cruciform transverse slices breaking with a short mealy fracture—if very dark hued, or it breaks with a horny fracture, it is inert, and consequently useless. It yields its virtues to alcohol, but not so readily or completely as to vinegar and wine.
The seeds are at their best during late July and early August, which is the period of collecting. They are nearly spherical, one-eighth inch in diameter, of reddish-brown hue externally, white internally, and yield much the same bitter. acrid flavor as the corm.
Colchicein is a decomposition product of colchicine, and is had as small, yellow needles; soluble in alcohol, ether, and chloroform; slightly so in water.
Colchicine appears both as an amor phous body and a yellow, crystalline powder melting at about 296.5° F.; in soluble in water, alcohol, ether, and chloroform; it is very bitter and highly toxic.
Colchicine tannate is a yellow powder, soluble in alcohol only.
Preparations and Doses.—Colchicum abstract (root, corm), 1 to 2 grains. Colchicum extract, fluid (root), 2 to 8 minims.
Colchicum extract, fluid (seed), 3 to 10 minims.
Colchicum extract, solid (root), 1/2 to 2 grains.
Colchicum extract, solid (root), acetic, '/, to 2 grains.
Colchicum, powdered (root), 2 to 6 grains.
Colchicum, powdered (seed), 3 to 10 grains.
Colchicum-syrup, 1 to 4 drachms. Colchicum tincture, acetated (root), 10 to 60 minims.
Colchicum tincture (seed), 10 to 30 minims. • Colchicum-wine (root), 10 to 60 minims.
Colchicum-wine (seeds), 30 to 120 minims.
Colchicein, 1/„0 to 1/„ grain. Colchicine, 1/„0 to 1/„ grain. Colchicine tannate, 1/„ to 1/„ grain. Scudamore's mixture (carbonate of magnesia, 2 drachms; Epsom salt, 8 drachms; wine of colchicum, 4 drachms; peppermint-water, to make 12 ounces), 4 to S drachms.
Larger doses of wine may be ployed, but the drug then becomes very actively purgative and likewise emetic. Physiological Action.—In small doses colchicum is a marked alterative and cholagogue, and further exercises some mysterious, but specific, action whereby it becomes sedative, and which cannot be accounted for, save in part, by its evacuant properties. It increases secre tions generally, particularly those of the liver and the glands and mucous folli cles of the intestines. In large doses it purges copiously, and may likewise prove violently emetic; yet many people will tolerate unusual quantities without any unpleasant effects. Again, it is not un common for colchicum to produce a marked degree of exhaustion—perhaps even to fatality—ere hypercatharsis and hyperemesis give warning that it is being pushed too far. The stools produced by the drug are of a highly-bilious char acter, and, while at first solid or semi solid, perhaps enveloped with mucus, later they are soft, liquid, of high color, and may even assume a dysenteric char acter. Authorities are not in accord as to the diuretic powers; while some in sist that it favors solution and excretion of uric acid and urea, others deny any such action. As a matter of fact, the drug does not always provoke diuresis; but this is to be accounted for, perhaps, by the character of the preparation em ployed or the mode of administration. Strange to say, alcohol inhibits the ac tion of colchicum, yet the wine is the most active of all the Galenical prepara tions. Alkalies materially assist its diuretic a.nd purgative properties, and, combined with potassium bicarbonate, not only is this observed, but also the antilithic powers of the latter are greatly enhanced.