Oleum Terebinthinae.

Related entry: Oil of Turpentine under diuretics

Dose.—From gtt. v. to ʒj., usually in emulsion.

Therapeutic Action.—Oil of Turpentine is described as stimulant, anthelmintic, diuretic, cathartic, rubefacient, antispasmodic, sudorific and emmeuagogue. When taken in small doses it creates a sensation of warmth in the stomach and bowels, and after being absorbed excites vascular activity, stimulates the capillary circulation and the different excretory organs. It is cast off by the different emunctories, as the skin, kidneys and lungs, as is manifest by the odor of their secretions. It appears to constringe, or rather to excite the vessels of mucous surfaces, so as to lessen excessive mucous and sanguineous discharges. Its free and protracted use often causes irritation of the urinary organs, and not unfrequently strangury and bloody urine.

Oil of Turpentine is employed with some advantage in many diseases. As a stimulant in typhoid fevers, especially when accompanied with a tumid or tympanitic state of the abdomen, and ulceration of the mucous membrane of the bowels, it has been esteemed a valuable agent.

In puerperal fever it is a valuable agent, to relieve the tympanitic condition of the intestines. For this purpose it is used as an enema, and as an application to the abdomen by means of flannel cloths wrung out of it warm.

In chronic rheumatism, especially in aged persons, of in languid and atonic subjects, its stimulant and diaphoretic properties render it useful in some cases.

The American Eclectic Materia Medica and Therapeutics, 1898, was written by John M. Scudder, M.D.