Administration

The laxative dose of aloes is from two to six grains, the full purgative dose from ten to twenty grains. It is most agreeably given in the form of pill. As the alkalies, alkaline carbonates, and soap are thought, by rendering aloes more soluble, and otherwise qualifying vol. ii.-34 its condition, to obviate in some measure its tendency to irritate the rectum, it is customary to use soap in the preparation of the pills. Should the drug contain obvious impurities, it should be freed from them before being used. Hence the following officinal directions.

Purified Aloes (Aloe Purificata, U. S.) is an officinal of the U. S. Pharmacopoeia, prepared from Socotrine aloes by melting it, then adding a little alcohol, and straining through a fine sieve. The drug is thus freed from various accidental impurities which it is apt to contain, and better fitted both for internal administration and pharmaceutic use; and, should the other varieties contain similar impurities, they should be similarly treated. The British Pharmacopoeia directs, under the titles of Extract of Barbadoes Aloes, and Extract of Socotrine Aloes, similar preparations, only that hot water instead of alcohol is used as the agent for bringing the crude medicine into a liquid state fit for straining.

The officinal Aloetic Pills (Pilulae Aloes, U. S.) are made of equal parts of Socotrine aloes and soap; and each pill weighs four grains. One, two, or three of them may be given for laxative effect, and five as a full purgative. The British Pharmacopoeia directs similar pills of Barbadoes and Socotrine aloes.

There are several compound officinal pills containing aloes as their chief ingredient.

Pills of Aloes and Assafetida (Pilulae Aloes et Assafcetida, U. S., Br.) consist of the two ingredients mentioned in the title, made into a pilular mass with soap, or, according to the Br. Pharmacopoeia, with confection of roses. They are adapted to costiveness, with debility of stomach, and a great tendency to flatulence. Each pill contains four grains of the mass, and its three constituents are in equal proportion.

Pills of Aloes and Mastich (Pilula Aloes et Mastiches, U. S.) are prepared with three parts of aloes, and one part each, of mastic and red rose, beaten into a mass with water; and this is so divided that each pill weighs, the water included, four grains, and contains two grains of aloes. They are intended as an imitation of the popular dinner pills of Lady Webster. The use of the mastic is probably, by its plasticity, to prevent the rapid solution of the aloes, and thus enable the pill to act more especially on the lower bowels. it is intended as a gentle laxative and stomachic; and one pill, taken before a meal or at bedtime, will often be sufficient to obviate habitual costiveness.

Pills of Aloes and Myrrh (Pilula Aloes et Myrrhae, U. S., Br.), or Rufus's pills, as they have been long called, consist of aloes, with half its weight of myrrh and a little saffron, made into a pilular mass with syrup, or with confection of roses (Br.). They are used specially in constipation with amenorrhoea. Each pill contains about two grains of aloes, by the quantity of which the dose is to be regulated.

There were until recently other officinal pills, as the Compound Pills of Aloes (Pilulae Aloes Compositae) of the London and Dublin Pharmacopoeias, and the Pills of Aloes and iron (Pilula Aloes et Ferri, Ed.), the former containing chiefly aloes and extract of gentian, the latter aloes and sulphate of iron; both, no doubt, excellent combinations, but so readily suggesting themselves to the mind of the practitioner, that they might very well be left to extemporaneous prescription. They have been omitted in the British Pharmacopoeia.

There is at present but one officinal powder containing aloes; the Powder of Aloes and Canella (Pulvis Aloes et Canellae, U. S.), or the hiera picra of older pharmacy, containing four parts of aloes mixed with one of canella; a second, the Compound Powder of Aloes (Pulvis Aloes Compositus, Lond,), which consisted of three parts of aloes, two of guaiac, and one of aromatic powder rubbed together, having been discarded in the preparation of the British Pharmacopoeia. The aromatics in these powders serve to obviate any griping tendency of the aloes, and the guaiac in the London preparation rendered it somewhat more warming and stimulant to the stomach. But, in consequence of the excessive bitterness of 'aloes, neither of them is an eligible form for administering it.

A Compound Decoction of Aloes (Decoctum Aloes Compositum, Br.) is directed by the British Pharmacopoeia. it is prepared by boiling extract of Socotrine aloes, myrrh, liquorice, saffron, and carbonate of potassa with water, and adding compound tincture of cardamom. The boiling diminishes the purgative property of the aloes, while the alkaline carbonate renders it more soluble, and, as some think, also milder. The aromatics render it more acceptable to the stomach, and the myrrh adds to its tonic and perhaps emmenagogue properties. it is, however, little used in this country. The dose is from four fluidrachms to a fluidounce. The formula is contained in the U. S. Dispensatory.

Tincture of Aloes (Tinctura Aloes, U. S., Br) consists of aloes and liquorice, dissolved in a menstruum composed of one part by measure of officinal alcohol and three of water. The liquorice is added to cover the taste of the aloes, which it does but very imperfectly. An advantage of the preparation is the weakness of the spirituous menstruum, which contains only about sufficient alcohol to enable it to keep well. As a full purgative, the dose of the tincture is from half a fluidounce to a fluidounce; as a laxative from one to three fluidrachms.

Tincture of Rhubarb and Aloes (Tinctura Rhei et Aloes, U. S. 1850) has already been referred to. (See Rhubarb, page 520.)

Tincture of Aloes and Myrrh (Tinctura Aloes et Myrrhae, U. S.; Tinctura Aloes Composita, Lond.), which is made with aloes, saffron, and tincture of myrrh, is a modification of the old elixir pro-prietatis, and is occasionally used as a warming, laxative, tonic emmenagogue, in chlorotic females with constipation and amenorrhoea, in the dose of one or two fluidrachms.

Aloes enters also into the Compound Tincture of Benzoin, which will be referred to again under the balsams.

Wine of Aloes (Vinum Aloes, U. S.) is retained by the U. S. and Br. Pharmacopoeias, though it scarcely seems necessary to have two preparations so analogous as this and the Tincture of Aloes. The wine, however, differs from the tincture in having cardamom and ginger, as adjuvants or corrigents of the aloes, instead of liquorice. The dose is about one-half that of the tincture.

Dr. H. M. Howe, of Philadelphia, obtained a cathartic effect from the wine of aloes, applied over the abdomen by means of a large cloth saturated with it, in a case of extremely obstinate constipation. The patient had taken two drops of croton oil, with frequent enemata of soap and water, on the morning of the previous day, but only a very slight effect was obtained. The aloes was applied at 10 on the following morning; and a copious stool was obtained at 3.30 p.m., and another at 5. (N. Y. Med. Journ., Jan. 1866, p. 265.)

A glycerate (glycerole, Fr.) of aloes has been proposed, consisting of a solution of the alcoholic extract of aloes in glycerin, and containing the virtues of a drachm of the crude drug in a fluidounce of the preparation. it is intended, however, rather for external than internal use; being recommended by M. Chausit, who brought it into notice, as a topical application to lichen agrius, and the excoriations of eczema. (Pharm. Journ. and Trans., 2d sér., i. 322.)