“The want of phosphorus in the brain would reduce man to the sad condition of the brute; an excess of this element irritates the nervous system, excites the individual, and throws him into that terrible state of disturbance called madness, or mental alienation; a moderate proportion gives rise to the sublimest ideas, and produces that admirable harmony which spiritualists call the soul.”
British practitioners took but very little notice of phosphorus as a remedy in the first century of its career, although it remained for a large part of that period an English product.
It is rather curious, too, that neither in this country nor on the Continent did it get into the hands of the empirics, as mercury, antimony, and other dangerous drugs did. It may be supposed that it was not so much the danger that checked them as the pharmaceutical difficulties in the way of preparing suitable medicines. The earliest preparations of phosphorus, such as Kunckel’s pills, were a combination of it in a free state with conserve of roses. This method was gradually abandoned on account of the difficulty of subdividing the phosphorus so perfectly that the dose could be measured accurately. But as Dr. Ashburton Thompson remarks,[3] “although it is not so specifically mentioned, the uncertainty of action which imperfectly divided phosphorus exhibits” had something to do with the rejection of the old formulas. That is putting it very gently. The three-grain doses must have killed more people than they cured. The author just quoted says that in the early days “the dose employed seldom fell below 3 grains, while it occasionally rose as high as 12 grains.” Even Leroy, he adds, instituted his experiments by taking a bolus of 3 grains, and he did not seriously suffer from it. The recommended dose has been regularly declining. In 1855 Dr. Hughes Bennett gave it at one-fortieth to one-eighth of a grain. The Pharmacopœia now prescribes one-hundredth to one-twentieth of a grain.
The hypophosphites in the form of syrup were introduced by Dr. J. F. Churchill, of Paris, as specifics in consumptive diseases about 1857. His preference of these salts over the phosphates was based on the theory that the deficiency in the system in a phthisical condition was not of phosphates, which had been completely oxidised, but of a phosphide in an oxidisable condition, and this requirement was fulfilled by the hypophosphites. The latter he compared to wood or coal, the phosphates to ashes, so far as active energy was concerned. Dr. Churchill’s interest in a special manufacture of the hypophosphite syrups prejudiced the medical profession against his theories, and it is not certain that he got a fair hearing in consequence. The general verdict was that his results were not obtained by other experimenters, but for a good many years past syrups of the hypophosphites have been among the most popular of our general tonics.