SALUT!
We extract the following from the Medical Times and Gazette: "The vacancy in the section of Therapeutics and Medical National History at the Academie de Medicine, having to be filled up, this time, by a member representing the therapeutical division, two of the candidates have just read papers before the Academy in support of their claims. That of M. Boinet bore the title: "The means of administering Iodine in a completely soluble state, and entirely deprived of its irritating properties." As perhaps no practitioner has employed iodine, in its various forms, more abundantly than M. Boinet, what he has to say on the subject must have great weight. The accidents which were met with when iodine was first introduced, he observes, were due to portions of this substance remaining undissolved, and acting as foreign bodies. Some of these, at once, disappeared when the iodine had been rendered soluble by the agency of potassium. But others arose which were wrongfully attributed to the iodine, such as tumefaction of the mucous membrane, salivation, lachrymation, gastralgia, &c. These M. Boinet is convinced, really arise from the potassium with which the iodine is combined, for results of an analogous character are observed during the use of other salts having potassium as a base, as chlorate and nitrate of potass. Now, the solubility of the iodine may be still preserved, while the inconvenient effects alluded to may be obviated by substituting tannic acid- for the potassium. The tincture of iodine of the French codex is not a completely soluble prepararation, but may be rendered so by the addition of some tannic acid. But M. Boinet thinks, further, that advantage might be derived from recurring in some sort to the practice of our forefathers of employing iodine in a state of more natural combination, as in the form of burnt sponge, marine plants, natural mineral waters, &c.— the greater molecular division facilitating the absorption of the constituent principles. It is only since chemistry has shown us that these various substances contained iodine that we have become aware to what agent they owed their curative properties—properties no less real than those belonging to our modern pharmaceutical preparations. The investigations of Chatin and others have shown that iodine is abundantly distributed throughout organic and inorganic matter, and that there are less goitre and scrofula in those countries where it is most prevalent. For all these reasons, M. Boinet thinks it desirable to resort to these more natural preparations, they being as efficacious and less injurious than those now in use. To this end, he has devised a natural iodine wine which, while it produces no ill effects upon the digestive organs, is of easy absorption and assimilation. It is prepared by placing in a wooden vessel alternate layers of raisins and of marine plants reduced to powder, until the vessel is filled, and then allowing the whole to ferment during a fortnight, and treating it as ordinary wine. A useful combination of iodine is thus produced by which the affections to which this substance is apblicable may be advantageously treated."
The administration of the natural iodine waters produces none of the inconveniences against which M. Boinet would guard us. It is the magnitude of the dose which is the cause of the unfavorable symptoms following the use of iodine, to which he refers ; and it is to the infinitesimal quantities of minutely divided, and therefore, highly soluble iodine, that the natural preparations, to which he purposes to return, owe their superior virtues.—Mon. Hom. Review.
source: The American homeopathist, Volumes 1-2, 1865
On the Preparation of a Natural Iodine Wine.
Originally administered in the natural state and dissolved in water by Coindet, iodine has been exhibited much more efficaciously through the intervention of iodide of potassium, as recommended by Dr. Lugol. This latter salt, indeed, has been almost completely substituted for it, and it is nearly exclusively in this form that internal treatment with iodine is effected.
Reason, however, points out that advantage is gained in giving medicaments in a state as nearly as possible like that in which they are found in nature; and, indeed, iodide of potassium, on account of the special action which it exerts on the mucous membranes of the eye, nose, and larynx, offers real inconveniences, and is impossible to be taken by some persons.
Under these circumstances, M. Debauque has opened a way which promises to be of service in showing how to render iodine soluable in tannin without the aid of iodide of potassium. From this has arisen M. Boinet's idea of administering iodine in liquors or syrups containing tannic acid, such as the wines of horse-raddish, quinine, gentian, walnut, or orange peel.
Arguing upon the good results effected by iodine contained in mineral waters, certain salts and plants, and burnt sponge, although these only contain very small quantities, remembering the results which he had already obtained by the incorporation of this metalloid into articles of food (iodised alimentation) ; and as he has repeatedly said, to get farther from the laboratory and nearer to nature, M. Boinet has been induced to search for a preparation of this kind which would not have upon the tongue, throat, nor the stomach, the ill effects of ordinary iodine wines, which are usually prepared by the addition of tincture of iodine or iodine of potassium. This is what he does:—
At the time of vintage commence by picking the grapes so as only to have them ripe and fit to make good wine. They must not be picked off the bunch, on account of the tannin and salts contained by the stalk, which serve to preserve the wine and aid fermentation. They are placed in a large wooden tub capable of holding many barrels of wine. At the bottom is placed a thick layer of grapes, then above a layer of powdered seaweed, or even a layer of asher of these plants; then a fresh layer of grapes, then another layer of seaweed, and so on until the tub is full. The whole is then covered with a layer of chopped straw to keep the air away and favor fermentation. The important operation of working now commences, which lasts from fifteen to twenty days, according to the temperature. When the wine is fit to draw off—that is to say, when the fermentation is complete and the grape sugar changed into alcohol and carbonic acid, and it has dissolved and assimilated to itself the iodine contained in the weeds—it is placed in casks, keeping it as much as possible from contact with the air. To effect this, it must be drawn from the tub by means of a tap. The concluding operations are effected as with ordinary wine. This wine is, however, nothing more than a tincture of iodine, obtained like other tinctures, as that of aloes, opium, &c., by maceration and fermentation.
This wine M. Boinet calls natural iodine wine. It keeps as well as ordinary wine, and has not, like syrups, the inconvenience of fermenting and decomposing. It contains so much iodine that it can even be mixed with other wine before being administered. The dose may be two or three spoonfuls unmixed per day for adults, and the same in coffee for children. M. Boinet usually administers it in the following manner:
In the wine usually drank at meals, or in any other beverage, a spoonful of this iodine wine is mixed at each meal. This wine has no disagreeable taste, and were invalids not told of it, they would not suspect that they were taking iodine or wine containing iodine.— Bull, de Therap. ; Chemical News.
source: Journal of materia medica, Volume 4, 1862
