Coniferae.

Turpentine (Teeebinthina) 15-09-12 10:24 AM

Coniferae. Turpentine (Teeebinthina)

This section is from the book "Materia Medica And Therapeutics - Vegetable Kingdom",
by Charles D. F. Phillips. Also available from Amazon: Materia Medica And Therapeu-
tics: Vegetable Kingdom.

Active Ingredients. - The colorless turpentine of pharmacy is procured by distillation

from the common yellow. The formula is C10H16. Specific gravity .84. It is miscible with
absolute alcohol, benzol, sulphide of carbon, chloroform, and ether, and is insoluble in
water. The penetrating odor and burning taste are sufficiently well known.

Physiological Action. - In large doses turpentine is a powerful narcotic irritant poison,

exerting its effects especially upon the alimentary and the genito-urinary tract, the
whole of which is influenced by it; and acting also as a deliriant narcotic, producing
symptoms of brain-intoxication not very unlike those of alcoholic tipsiness. A dose of
two or three teaspoonfuls produces great heat at the stomach, and afterwards all over
the body, with rapid and tense pulse, slight giddiness, and mental confusion: the breath,
the sweat, and the urine smell slightly of turpentine, or, more accurately speaking, the
last smells not of turpentine, but of violets. If the dose be larger, nausea and vomiting
set in, with delirium; purging sometimes occurs, but not always; if, however, the dose
be very large, purging and tenesmus are nearly sure to take place. In the latter case there
are burning pains in the abdomen; intelligence becomes torpid; instead of diuresis
(which at first appeared), there is strangury, with passage of small quantities of bloody
urine, often followed by complete suppression. These effects pass off in from twenty-
four to forty-eight hours, or they may lead on to a fatal result, with coma, or convul-
sions, or both. It is remarkable, that in the not very numerous fatal cases recorded, com-
paratively slight organic traces of the irritative process were found. The poison evident-
ly acts chiefly through the nervous system.

Locally applied to the unbroken skin, turpentine produces a sense of burning, followed
by inflammatory redness and stinging pain; if the application be carried far enough
there is vesication.

Therapeutic Action. - Turpentine has been applied to a large number of remedial pur-
poses, and its value, though often exaggerated, is very great.

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As a Stimulant Narcotic in neuralgias, turpentine sometimes proves of wonderful ser-

vice; but there is a marked difference in the frequency with which its benefits are mani-
fested in different forms of the disease. Sciatica is pre-eminently the neuralgia in which
success may be expected from the use of turpentine; yet, as Nothnagel remarks, it is to
be regretted that, although nothing can be more certain than its occasional great value
therein, scientific indications for its use are entirely lacking. Turpentine is far from being
a specific for sciatica; and all we can say is that it is usually in cases where other reme-
dies have failed, and possibly in those in which a rheumatic taint is particularly distinct,
that this medicine cures. When it does succeed, the cure is often astonishingly rapid and
complete. Of late years turpentine has been naturally a good deal pushed out of view as
an anti-neuralgic medicine by the many new and powerful remedies for pain which
have been introduced; but its powers in this respect should not be forgotten, as they
may sometimes prove highly serviceable.

In Chronic Rheumatism, threatening to become inveterate, and having already pro-

duced Considerable deformities in the joints, turpentine is one of the few remedies
which will occasionally arrest the downward progress of the case, and frequently give
relief to the pains.

In cases of Excessive and Unhealthy Discharges from mucous membranes, turpentine is

a remedy that frequently acts with great effect. In bronchorrhoea, especially when the
discharge becomes foetid, and more particularly in gangrene of the lung, turpentine has
been used with the best effect, both in small doses by the stomach, and by inhalation
from hot water. It has been employed, with occasional success, in chronic blennorrhoea,
and in chronic cystitis, with ropy secretion.

For Haemorrhage of various kinds there can be no doubt that turpentine often proves
very efficacious. Inhaled from hot water, or taken in repeated half-drachm doses by the
stomach, it has not unfrequently checked serious haemoptysis. But its most undoubted-
ly beneficial action in this way is shown in typhoid fever; here it often proves invaluable
in cases where there is a disposition at once to haemorrhage and to extreme tympanitis.
It is then best given by enema, 30 to 60 minims in starch-mucilage, either alone or (if
there be much discharge and pain) with 10 minims of liq. opii.

Tympanitic Conditions of the large intestines, occurring under many other circum-

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Coniferae. Turpentine (Teeebinthina) 15-09-12 10:24 AM

stances besides typhoid fever, are often greatly benefited by turpentine.

In cases of Ulceration of the Bowels, when the tongue parts with its fur in large flakes,
and when the surface appears smooth and varnished, turpentine is strongly to be rec-
ommended. It not only moistens the tongue and covers it with a healthy fur, but all the
other ulcerative symptoms quickly abate.

In Pure Atonic Constipation, with gaseous distention of the large bowel, the persistent
use of this medicine has not unfrequently triumphed when all other remedies have
failed. In the melanismus which occurs in a certain class of cases often reckoned among
the puerperal fevers, the stimulant influence of turpentine again often leads to the hap-
piest results; and it may be suspected that the warm praises bestowed upon turpentine
by Ramsbottom, Marshall Hall, and others, as a remedy in puerperal fever, really re-
ferred to cases of this sort, and not to instances of the genuine puerperal utero-peritoni-
tis.

As a Simple Purgative for any one particular occasion, turpentine is best given in ene-
ma*. Half an ounce, with an equal quantity of castor-oil, and half a pint to a pint of gru-
el, usually acts very promptly and conveniently.

As a Vermifuge, turpentine once enjoyed much approval, but may now be said to be su-
perseded. Its chief efficacy is in the treatment of tape-worm, but it is so decidedly inferi-
or to Filix-mas and Kousso for this purpose as to be scarcely worth consideration.

In Iritis of the so-called "rheumatic" variety, turpentine has been very successfully used
by Carmichael and others, in small repeated doses.

Dropsy, with albuminous urine, depending upon non-desquamative disease of the kid-
ney, yields in a remarkable way to drop or even to half-drop doses of turpentine every
two to four hours.

Poisoning by Phosphorus. - Oil of turpentine, given in 30-minim doses in mucilage,

every quarter of an hour or thereabouts, is an excellent antidote for the poisonous effects
of phosphorus. (Ordinary turpentine cannot be relied on as an antidote in acute phos-
phorus poisoning; but if the turpentine be thoroughly impregnated with oxygen it is
probably the most efficient agent for the purpose yet known, a fact first brought to light

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Coniferae. Turpentine (Teeebinthina) 15-09-12 10:24 AM

by Kohler,1 since confirmed by others.)

External Uses. - As an external remedy, oil of turpentine has numerous modes of appli-
cation; the principle of its employment being, in every instance, that of counter-irrita-
tion. As a liniment, either cold or hot, it is valuable in chronic rheumatism, sprains, sore
throat, and various neuralgic affections; also, as a fomentation, in puerperal peritonitis,
pleuropneumonia, and all inflammations of serous membranes. Severe and dangerous
burns and scalds, especially when the local injury is accompanied by great constitution-
al depression, are likewise treated with it very successfully; and occasionally it is found
useful in those dry and chronio forms of gangrene which are not preceded by inflamma-
tion.

Preparations And Dose. - Oleum Terebinthinae, m x. - 3 ij. (.65 - 8.); Linimentum Tere-
binthinae.

1 Ucb. Werth u. Bedeutung des sauerstoffhaltigen Terpenthinols, u. s. w. Halle 1872.

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