Opium

Imported from

• Turkey
• India

A Compendium of Domestic Medicine, 1865

Remedies Containing or to be used with Opium Listed in CDM1865

• Sesquicarbonate of Ammonia (16): "combined with opium, it affords a powerful resource in protracted diarrhoea, attended with debility of the alimentary canal."
• Angustura or Cusparia Bark (19): part of a mixture (in the form of Jeremie's solution) used to treat diarrhoea, "with irritability and exhaustion."
• Amtimonial powder (20): combined with opium or camphor to treat fever or other inflammatory diseases.
• Astringent Powder (24): opium (Jeremie's solution) can be used to alleviate pain during the evacuations of the intestines and bowels.
• Black Drop (32): aka Quaker's Black Drop, used instead of opium and laudanum so as to avoid the side-effects of each drug (including delirium, restlessness, headache, sickness, and debility). It might be produced from opium; Savory does not mention. More research needed.
• Camphor Liniment, Compound (38): used to topically apply opium
• Compound Chalk Powder, with Opium (45): relief of diarrhoea that is caused by acidity
• Confection of Opium (50): "is a useful remedy in checking common diarrhoea, and some forms of chronic rheumatism."
• Dover's Power (53-54): can treat rheumatism, gout, diabetes, dropsy, diarrhoea, dysentery, fevers. "Dover's powder is a mild a safe opiate for children, and less liable to disagree than perhaps others."
• Galls (68): combined with opium in treating piles, especially blind piles.
• Laudanum (92): "When judiciously administered, it is one of the most valuable medicines we possess." Can treat pain and spasm (as a liniment), when ingested can stop violent vomiting, provide relief from decaying teeth.
• Morphine, or Morphia (102): alkaloid of opium, often used in the form of the acetate, the hydochlorate/muriate, or sulphate of morphia. Provides similar relief as opium, with less stimulation to the patient. "like opium they reduce their effect by repetition, and, consequently, the dose requires to be gradually increased."
• Jeremie's Solution of Opium (113): does not have side effects of opium ("disturbing the nervous system, or diminishing the secretions"). Used to treat: gout, rheumatism, diarrhoea, cholera, influenza, common catarrh (cold), those who suffer from tic, nervous and spasmodic pains.
• Paregoric Elixir (114): contains opium. Used to treat: the tickling sensation that accompanies a recent cough, hooping-cough.
• Pellitory of Spain (115-16): Used as a gargle or can be chewed. Encourages the flow of saliva, relief from toothache.
• Sedative Liquor or Opium (132): Does not contain narcotine (stimulant). Used as a sedative.
• Sugar of Lead (147): Given with opium to stop pulmonary and uterine haemorrhages.
• Wine of Opium (171): Used in similar cases as Laudanum. "Mr. Ware has applied the wine of opium to the eye in cases where, after active inflammation has been subdued, the vessels remain turgid; two oe three drops of it being introduced under the eyelids."

Diseases Treated with Opium as listed in CDM1865

• Ague, or Intermittent Fever (205): Jeremie's Solution of Opium can be administered along with Flower's Solution of Arsenic during the intermission stages of fever.
• Burns or Scalds (210): Opium is to be given to reduce pain, allow sleep, and also lessen "the disposition to various other dangerous symptoms."
• Cholera Morbus (222): Jeremie's Solution of Opium is included in a draught that is to be taken with pills, should vomiting and/or pain continue past the first stage of treatment. (224) A tincture of opium is include in a mixture that was proposed by the Board of Health during a cholera outbreak.
• Menstruation (247): can be used along with other remedies to reduce pain, resulting from Dysmenorrhoea (painful menstruation).
• Piles, or Haemorrhoids (248): Used in combination of an ointment of galls, to relieve pain.
• Rheumatism (251): Opium can be used during diaphoresis, although it can be replaced by other narcotics that help relieve pain.
• Sickness (255): "The best palliatives against nausea and vomiting are effervescing saline draughts and small doses of opium."
• Toothache (257): Opium is one of the narcotics listed, as is laudanum.
• Typhus Fever (259): Opium is to be used as a stimulant "necessary to sustain the powers of life," should the patient be severely weakened by the disease.
• Aphthous Ulceration, or Thrush (266): Jeremie's Solution of Opium is part of a liniment that is applied during early stages of the infection, before the bowels have been affected.

Medical Articles Containing Opium as listed in CDM1865

• Dr. Bow's Opiate Liniment (298): "Dr. Bow recommends the use of opiate frictions int he inflammatory affection of children, and he relates many cures in this way."
• Liniment used in chaps of the nipples (302): maybe for breastfeeding? or for relief after breastfeeding?

Prescriptions Containing Opium as listed in CDM1865

Antacid

• Diarrhoea from Acidity (306)
• Chalk Mixture (306)
• Aromatic Chalk Draught (309)

Alternatives

• For Dropsical affections (310): in pill form

Astringents

• Asiatic Tincture for Cholera (319): "This medicine has attained great celebrity in the East Indies and in America"

Demulcents

• Cough Pills (324)

Diuretics

• Diuretic Pill (Another) (326)

Expectorants

• Expectorant Pills (328)

Narcotics and Anodynes

• Narcotic Draught (331): contained Jeremie's solution of opium