SCUTELLARIA



high reputation, therefore, of Scullcap, perhaps surpassing
that of any other remedy, practitioners ought to resort to
the use of it on any occasion which may offer, either in
relieving mankind from this awful malady, or in arresting
the devastation among the brute creation."
  TREATMENT.-The following is the manner in which
Mr. Lewis and Dr. Van Derveer respectively prepared
and administered the remedy:
  "The leaves of Scutellaria should be gathered when in
flower, carefully dried, reduced to a fine powder, and
put into bottles, well corked, for use. When a person
has received a bite by a mad dog, he must take of a
strong infusion of the leaves or powder, a gill four or
five times a day, every other day. The day it is omitted
he must take a spoonful of the flowers of sulphur in
molasses, in the morning, fasting, and at bedtime in
new milk, and apply the pounded green herb to the
wound every two hours, continuing the prescription
for three weeks. For cattle or horses, use four times
that prescribed for a man.-Thacher."
  THE DISCREDITING OF SCUTELLARIA.-Between the
date of the discovery of the properties of scutellaria in
1773, by Dr. Van Derveer, who experienced nearly
half a century of quiet, neighborhood practice of medi-
cine, and the charlatanism methods of the weaver,
Lewis, who knew nothing of medicine, but was an ad-
vertising "mad-dog doctor," scutellaria passed into of-
fensive notoriety, several causes uniting to discredit
the drug.
  1. The hostility of the leaders of the medical pro-
fession, largely by reason of its newspaper popularity,
through which the drug had come to be dominated by
non-medical men.



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