deobstruent: (defined) Removing obstructions; having power to clear or open the natural ducts of the fluids and secretions of the body; aperient. -- n. (Med.) A medicine which removes obstructions; an aperient.
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In medicine iodine is frequently applied externally as a counterirritant, having powerful antiseptic properties. In the form of certain salts iodine is very widely used, for internal administration in medicine and in the treatment of many conditions usually classed as surgical, such as the bone manifestations of tertiary syphilis. The most commonly used salt is the iodide of potassium; the iodides of sodium and ammonium are almost as frequently employed, and those of calcium and strontium are in occasional use. The usual doses of these salts are from five to thirty grains or more. Their pharmacological action is as obscure as their effects in certain diseased conditions are consistently brilliant and unexampled. Our ignorance of their mode of action is cloaked by the term deobstruent, which implies that they possess the power of driving out impurities from the blood and tissues. Most notably is this the case with the poisonous products of syphilis. In its tertiary stages - and also earlier - this disease yields in the most rapid and unmistakable fashion to iodides; so much so that the administration of these salts is at present the best means of determining whether, for instance, a cranial tumour be syphilitic or not. No surgeon would think of operating on such a case until iodides had been freely administered and, by failing to cure, had proved the disease to be non-syphilitic. Another instance of this deobstruent power - "alterative," it was formerly termed - is seen in the case of chronic lead poisoning. The essential part of the medicinal treatment of this condition is the administration of iodides, which are able to decompose the insoluble albuminates of lead which have become locked up in the tissues, rapidly causing their degeneration, and to cause the excretion of the poisonous metal by means of the intestine and the kidneys. The following is a list of the principal conditions in which iodides are recognized to be of definite value: metallic poisonings, as by lead and mercury, asthma, aneurism, arteriosclerosis, angina pectoris, gout, goitre, syphilis, haemophilia, Bright's disease (nephritis) and bronchitis.
Small quantities of the iodate (KIO 3) are a frequent impurity in iodide of potassium, and cause the congeries of symptoms known as iodism. These comprise dyspepsia, skin eruption and the manifestations which are usually identified with a "cold in the head." In many cases, as in syphilis, aneurism, lead poisoning, &c., the life of the patient depends on the free and continued use of the iodide, and this is best to be accomplished by securing an absolutely pure supply of the salt. Another often successful method of preventing the onset of symptoms of poisoning is to administer small doses of ammonium carbonate with the drug, thereby neutralizing the iodic acid which is liberated in the stomach.

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