[ Napoleon's Pectoral Pills / Expectorating Mixture ] William Paine
Date: Late 18th or early 19th century; exact date unknown.
Source:
William Paine Papers
Institution: University Of New Brunswick
| Source Origin: Loyalist Collection
| Reference: MIC-Loyalist FC LFR.P3W5P3
A recipe to treat chest congestion followed by instructions for an expectorant. The original source is unknown, but the instructions for Napoleon's Pills appear also on page 666 of the second edition of Arnold James Cooley's A Cyclopedia or Practical Receipts (London: John Churchill, 1845), and in the "New and Improved" edition of G.W. Francis' The Dictionary of Practical Receipts (London: J. Allen, 1853), where the pills are specified to treat "difficulty of breathing or oppression of the chest." (p. 247). Given that the first remedy was supposed to have been used on Napoleon's soldiers, it likely originated in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century.
Image use courtesy of American Antiquarian Society.
Napolean's pectoral Pills
Of the root of ipecacuanha in powder
thirty Grains.
Squil Root in powder
Gum Ammoniac of each Two Scruples.
Mucilage of Gum Arabic Sufficient
to form a Mass. When properly
mixed so as divide into twenty four
Pills.
Take night and morning. two.
Expectorating Mixture
Rx The nitric acid two Drachms
diluted in half a pint of of Water, ^pour iton
two Drachms of Gum Ammoniac, and rub
them together in a Glass Mortar, until the Gum
is dissolved.
Dose. A TableSpoonful in {...} Water
every two, or three Hours.
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