Boracic acid has been very extensively employed in the treatment of eye mala dies. Bourgeois, of Rheims, recommends it for phlyctenular and granular con junctivitis; Smith, of Chattanooga, as a wash for ophthalmia neonatorum; Dimissas introduces, every night, an ointment of boracic acid between the eyelids after operating for cataract; but Noyes declares the drug should be used with caution, and of a strength of not more than 1 per cent., since he has seen a diffuse keratitis develop from a 4-per cent. solution.
It is probable, however, that, when untoward results accrue to the use of a 4-per-cent. solution in the eye, even after cataract extraction, such is due to the quality of the acid employed.
In measles, too, frequent bathing of the eyes, nose, and ears with warm boracic-acid solution is to be recom mended as beneficial and comforting to the patient.
This drug has, also, been employed in the treatment of chancroid as a dust ing-powder; as an injection, and also internally administered, in cystitis; in naso-pharyngeal catarrh, especially the troublesome form seldom seen except in children; in chronic constipation, by applying the dry powder direct to the rectal mucosa; in watery solution and in ointment form to the urethra for gonorrhoea; in the form of ointment to the pustules of variola to prevent pit ting, etc.
In spite of the reputation accruing at one time, it is doubtful if any material benefit is ever derived from the use of this acid in any but the milder and less stubborn varieties of skin disease. It may, however, prove a valuable adjunct to other treatment.
When there is a profuse discharge from an eczematous patch, I direct the latter to be washed with a weak solu tion of boracic acid, then dried with muslin bags containing the dry acid duly incorporated with finely-powdered starch. Malcolm Morris (Practitioner).
Similar procedures have been recom mended by many authors. Gaucher, corroborated by Sevestre, Compy, and Cadet de Gassicourt, however, goes fur ther, and declares that he has secured rapid recovery in eczema, and also in contagious impetigo, by employing it in glycerole of starch, 1 to 30; he insists that this combination offers all the good to be obtained from oil of cade without any of the disadvantages of the latter.
In the erysipelas of the newborn Lemaine lauds this drug above all others. He holds that the malady is derived from an attenuated puerperal septicemia in the mother, and so directs the application of hot solutions of the acid, and subcutaneous injections of the same, cooled, twice daily.
Matigon, of Bordeaux; Mackenzie and Abbott, of London, as well as many others, express a decided preference for boracic acid, or for the tetraborate of sodium (this latter being merely a com bination of boracic acid and borax), above all other medicaments for the pur pose of preparing solutions intended to be used in the pleural cavity, especially after pneumotomy or aspiration.
In 1890 Edmund Andrews, of Chicago, published the results accruing to a series of experiments undertaken to determine the value of the acid as an antiseptic. He placed 2 drachms of fresh pork mus cle in each of a series of bottles, and added different percentages up to com plete saturation of acid solution. The result seemed to prove that even the strongest solution cannot inhibit the growth of mycelia, and further that no species of germs can thereby be entirely prevented from growing; that boracic acid only covers a raw surface with a moisture that is not distinctly antiseptic, but is nevertheless rather unfavorable to the growth of bacilli. Unfortunately for Dr. Andrews's conclusions, however, they are based upon incomplete experi ments, and consequently imperfect data. As has before been remarked, the acids of commerce vary greatly according to source and mode of manufacture; con sequently a series of experiments should have been made with different products. Moreover, the evidence is now over whelmingly positive that a moderately pure boracic acid is antiseptic, though only in slight degree; but it commends itself to the medical man especially be cause it is practically odorless and in nocuous.
Internally the acid appears to have been successfully employed in a variety of maladies. Gaucher administered from 7 to 20 grains daily to a number of patients suffering with pulmonary tuber culosis, and claims that both the local and general symptoms were improved, while the sputum lost its foetid charac ter; it had, however, no action upon the bacilli.