Dover's powder

Dover's powder (a.k.a. pulvis ipecacuanhae et opii) was a medicine against cold and fever.

Dover Tablets from a ship's medicine chest

Bottle of 'Dover Powder' from the medicine chest supplied by Burroughs Wellcome & Co., which accompanied Britain's 1901 National Antarctic Expedition

Developed in 1732 by English physician Thomas Dover,^[1] the powder was an old preparation of powder of ipecacuanha (which was formerly used to produce syrup of ipecac), opium in powder, and potassium sulfate. Initially designed to treat gout, it was later recommended for general pains, insomnia, and diarrhea, among others.

The powder was largely used in domestic practice to induce sweating, to defeat the advance of a common cold, and at the beginning of any attack of fever.^{[citation needed]}

It is no longer in use in modern medicine, but remained reputable until about the 1930s.^[1] Its inclusion of opium, an addictive substance, led to its discontinuation of use.^[1] Dover's powder was banned in India in 1994.^[2]

Contents

A 1958 source describes Dover's Powder as follows: "Powder of Ipecacuanha and Opium (B.P., Egyp. P., Ind. P.). Pulv. Ipecac. et Opii; Ipecac and Opium Powder (U.S.N.F.); Dover's Powder; Compound Ipecacuanha Powder. Prepared ipecacuanha, 10 g., powdered opium 10 g., lactose 80 g. It contains 1% of anhydrous morphine. Dose: 320 to 640 mg. (5 to 10 grains). Many foreign pharmacies include a similar powder, sometimes with potassium sulphate or with equal parts of potassium nitrate and potassium sulphate in place of lactose; max. single dose 1 to 1.5 g. and max. in 24 hours 4 to 6 g."^[3]

Usage

To obtain the greatest benefits from its use as a sudorific, it was recommended^{[by whom?]} that copious drafts of some warm and harmless drink be ingested after the use of the powder.

The following excerpt from a report penned by a Doctor Sharp, employed in the British naval service in the West Indies, in this case, in Trinidad, in 1818, illustrates its use. He writes :

At this period, thirty cases of acute dysentery also occurred amongst them and although nineteen of the number were men who arrived in the island from Europe on the 1st and 12th of June, yet, the symptoms even in them were equally as mild as in the assimilated soldier, and the disease yielded to the common remedies – viz – bleeding when the state of the vascular system appeared to indicate the use of it, but in general, saline purgatives in small and repeated quantities were only necessary with small doses at bed time, of calomel and opium, infusion of ipecacuanha or Dover’s powder, and this with tonics, moderate use of port wine and a light farinaceous diet generally and speedily accomplished a perfect case.^{[This quote needs a citation]}

It was an ingredient in John Wyeth & Brother, Inc.'s La Grippe (flu) pills, circa 1906.^[1]

In popular culture

Dover's powder was part of a joke published in The Science of Health in 1875 and reprinted in Godey's Lady's Book the same year. The joke illustrates its status as a typical medicine for a tumor:

An old lady in Jefferson County acquired the habit of using morphia for relief from the pains of a tumor. Her family vainly dissuaded her, and at last united in deceiving her by substituting carefully prepared potato starch in morphia bottles. She used this article for fifteen years until the day of her death, often complaining that it was an inferior article, though her physician declared it all right. He gave her Dover's powders once during an illness, but she could not rest until she took some of the starch morphia.^[4][5][6]