Cachectic Pills.
Take fine pick'd Ammoniacum in drops, pure Aloes, each 6 drams; Steel prepared with Sulphur 5 drams; Oil of Cloves and Anise, each 10 drops; Spirit of Wine (or Elixir Proporietatis tartaris'd) sufficient to reduce it to a Mass.
These are taken out of the Leuwaerden Dipensatory; and as the Bennet Pills are more especially appropriate for Women, so are these to Men, beacause they do not so directly respect Hysteric Vapours. But yet being hotter than those, they most frequently exagitate and exalt the Blood, open Obstructions as well recover the lost Tone of the Fibres, exonerate the Habit of the Body, and mend its Crasis. They are to be given in the same Dose and Manner with Bennet Pills.
I am not ignorant that the everlastingly famous Sydenham, holds, Cathartics are to be forborn all the while Chalybeates are taken, because the Virtue of the Chalybeates is infringed by the Cathartic; and when the main thing aim'd at is, that the system of the Spirits be redintegrated, repair'd and confirm'd. All that is built by Steel in 8 days space, is ruined and flung down in 1 by a Purge, tho' never so mild an one. And its no doubt at all to him, but that the giving now and then a Purge, during the Course of the Chalybeate Mineral Waters, renders them much the more ineffectual.
But on the contrary, I have very often observ'd Effects happy enough from Chalybeats and Cathartics join'd together. And all Practical Books and Bills on Apothecaries Files ('till perhaps of Late) are full of it. To solve this Difficulty, I judge we ought to distinguish thus.
If when we give Steel, we have but this one Intention only, viz. to exalt the Crasis of the deprest Blood, and consequently coroborate the System of the Spirits, then I hold with Sydenham, that we ought wholly abstain from Cathartics.
But put Case, that together with the exaltation of the Blood and Spirits; there are also Obstructions to be removed, and muddy Settlements to be carried off; then Cathartics, assisted with Chalybeates, operate best, and with united forces, do their Bussiness to purpose. And that this is right, we have the constant Practice of all our former Physicians to Vote for it, and certain, and undoubted experience hath seldom fail'd to confirm it.
Thomas Fuller
Pharmacopeia Extemporanea 1710