This section is from the book "Recent Materia Medica: Notes On Their Origin And Therapeutics", by F. Harwood Lescher. Also available from Amazon: Recent materia medica.
"A crystalline substance obtained from Phenyl-hydrazine." - 1890. Add. to B. P.
This rival to Quinine is artificially produced from coal-tar products, in aniline dye manufactories, by a very complex process. It was first prepared in 1884, by synthesis, by Dr. L. Knorr, of Erlangen, and patented by the colour makers, Meister, Lucius and Bruning of Hoechst, Germany : it is a derivative of an hypothetical base, Chinizin. Dr. Filehne found it an active antipyretic. It has been proposed in France to call it Analgesine.
Characteristics. In colourless crystalline plates, or in a white crystalline powder, with a slight aromatic odour and mild taste : soluble with ease in water or alcohol; melts at about 230° F.
Therapeutics. A powerful and efficient antipyretic, lowering the temperature 1° to 5° F. in fevers, acute rheumatic gout, etc. It is eliminated principally in the urine.
Valuable also as an analgesic in controlling pain in nervous, painful affections, as bilious headache, neuralgia, sciatica. Not being an anti-periodic, it cannot replace Quinine in ague.
Acute Rheumatism. Useful, but doubtful if equal to salicylic acid, as it does not prevent relapses : but it may be given where salicylates are obnoxious;
Sea Sickness. 45 grains daily, on the three days preceding the voyage, and on the three first days of the voyage:
Epistaxis. An aqueous solution, 1 in 30, applied on lint as a tampon to the nostrils.
Hay Fever. In 15 grain doses, before breakfast. (Dr; A. Bloch, of Havre.)
Surgery. It has been, from its antiseptic properties, used to replace Iodoform.
Chorea. "30-grain doses, in three days, cured a child of five." - Grun, Lancet, January 21st, 1888.
"In 8-grain doses, twice every hour, wonderfully potent in bilious headache." - Dr. J. Ogilvy, Brit. Med. Jour., 1887, p. 123.
Injected also subcutaneously, instead of morphia, to relieve pain : 7 1/2 grains dissolved in equal quantity of water. - Prof. Germain See.
For children it may be dissolved in a little water, and mixed with syrup : it may cause a roseola or pinky rash, the so-called Antipyrin rash, which is of no importance : also in whooping cough.
Formula.
Antipyrin ............ 80 grains.
Syrup Simp............. 1 ounce.
Aqua ............... 4 ounces.
Two teaspoonfuls for a dose.
Dose : 5 to 20 grains two or three times a day ; for children, 3 to 12 grains, several times a day.
Incompatible with spirit of nitrous ether; giving a green solution (iso-nitroso-antipyrin) which produces poisonous effects, similar to those of free nitrous acid and nitrites.
 
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