Dr. Kain, an American physician, recommends tartar emetic for the cure of habitual drunkenness. “Possessing,” he observes, “no positive taste itself, it communicates a disgusting quality to those fluids in which it is dissolved. I have often seen persons who, from taking a medicine in the form of antimonial wine, could never afterwards drink wine. Nothing, therefore, seems better calculated to form our indication of breaking up the association, in the patient’s feelings, between his disease and the relief to be obtained from stimulating liquors. These liquors, with the addition of a very small quantity of emetic tartar, instead of relieving, increase the sensation of loathing of food, and quickly produce in the patient an indomitable repugnance to the vehicle of its administration.” “My method of prescribing it, has varied according to the habits, age, and constitution of the patient. I give it only in alterative and slightly nauseating doses. A convenient preparation of the medicine is eight grains dissolved in four ounces of boiling water—half an ounce of the solution to be put into a half-pint, pint, or quart of the patient’s favourite liquor, and to be taken daily in divided portions. If severe vomiting and purging ensue, I should direct laudanum to allay the irritation, and diminish the dose. In every patient it should be varied according to its effects. In one instance, in a patient who lived ten miles from me, severe vomiting was produced, more, I think, from excessive drinking, than the use of the remedy. He recovered from it, however, without any bad effects. In some cases, the change suddenly produced in the patient’s habits, has brought on considerable lassitude and debility, which were of but short duration. In a majority of cases, no other effect has been perceptible than slight nausea, some diarrhœa, and a gradual, but very uniform, distaste to the menstruum.”[41] Having tried tartar emetic in several instances, I can bear testimony to its good effects in habitual drunkenness. The active ingredient in Chambers’s celebrated nostrum for the cure of ebriety, was this medicine. Tartar emetic, however, must always be used with caution, and never except under the eye of a medical man, as the worst consequences might ensue from the indiscreet employment of so active an agent.