Potassii Cyanidum.

Related entry: Acidum Hydrocyanicum Dilutum

Dose.—Grain ⅛ cautiously increased to gr. ½., or it may be dissolved in eight times its weight of distilled water; a solution called by Magendie the medicinal hydrocyanate of potash. Dose, gtt. j. to x., in emulsion or mucilage, and cautiously increased till its effects are manifest.

The cyanuret of potassium is it powerful sedative, possessing the properties of the hydrocyanic acid, for which it has been recommended as a substitute. It is employed in the same diseases, and under the same circumstances.

It is employed topically in facial neuralgia, sciatica, and other forms of neuralgia, in the form of a solution or ointment. Solution, gr. j. to gr. iv., water ℥j.; or Ointment, gr. ij. to iv., adeps, ℥j. When added to poultices it relieves pain. Andral applied it in cephalalgia, which had resisted for ten months other powerful agents, as setons, blisters, bleeding, etc., gr. viij. to water ℥j., and applied by compresses wet with it to the forehead and temples.

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