CANEDILLO.—This is the name of a cane with a bitter and aromatic bark, and, in my opinion, it belongs to the family of Winter’s bark. It has many therapeutic qualities; amongst others it has particularly attracted my attention as an antidote against the bite of snakes and of other venomous animals. I consider it the best and safest of all the antidotes known. Put two ounces of this bark in a bottle of alcohol, allow it to macerate for three or four hours, to obtain a tincture. Use two parts of this mixture with common water; a wineglass every two hours until you allay the headache of the bitten person—an infallible consequence of the bite, cupping at the same time, and extracting the tooth, which often remains in the part, which is then to be washed and covered with lint wetted with the tincture. By this simple method I have cured hundreds, without the loss of a single life. This antidote is now generally kept by all the owners of mines, as a certain cure for bites of snakes, in preference to other antidotes formerly used. It has this advantage over them, that it may be taken in any quantity without danger. It is, besides, a tonic and anti-spasmodic. I have used it also as a febrifuge; in rheumatism (by friction); and in the windy colic, taken in the same way as for bites by snakes. { 92} For indigestion caused by weakness, and for amenorrhœa, from the same cause, it is also used.
SANDALO.—This is the bark of a tree which grows in the province of Esmeraldas, in the republic of the Ecuador. When burned, it produces a balsamic smell; by boiling the bark when fresh, it produces a very aromatic balsam, which, like the balsam of tolu is used in catarrh, spasmodic cough, ulcers, &c.
NOTE.—All these substances are indigenous in the province of Barbacoas. Popa and sandi are found in great abundance. Manteca de palo (oil, or literally butter of wood), is obtained only from young trees which grow in the plains.
BY ALEXANDER URE, ESQ., SURGEON TO ST. MARY’S HOSPITAL.
My attention was attracted some time back by an ingenious paper of Mons. Persoz on the double pyrophosphoric salts, published in the _Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie_ for 1848. In the latter part of that paper, the author expresses an opinion that the pyrophosphoric salts are likely to prove of importance as medicinal agents. It is well known that iron is rendered very eligible for internal use, if administered in the form of a triple salt, as when combined, for example, with tartaric acid and potash; because the iron then is no longer precipitable by the alkaline hydrate. It would appear, however that the soda pyrophosphate of iron is in many respects superior as a medicine to the triple salts into which the vegetable acids enter.—Thus, the pyrophosphoric salt, from being saturated with oxygen, cannot in passing through the system absorb more, whereas the latter salts under like circumstances, are constantly undergoing a process of combustion, according to Millon; and by withdrawing oxygen in this manner, must necessarily impair the efficacy of the oxide of iron as an oxydizing agent. It deserves notice, moreover, that the constituent ingredients of the soda-pyrophosphate of iron are to be found in the organism. { 93}