Ammonia

Below you'll find an excerpt from an 1855 source on the use of Ammonia in medicine.
Ammonia.—Ammonia is employed in medicine as a powerful stimulant and antacid. It may be given in doses of from five to ten grains of the carbonate, in two table spoonsful of camph.r mixture. This is an effective nervous stimulant in certain paralytic affections, and in those cases of indistinct vision, and noise in the ears, to which nervous persons are subject, and which sometimes appear connected with debilitated digestive powers. Faintness and giddiness are also immediately relieved by a dose of Ammonia, from fifteen to thirty drops of Liquor of Ammonia in various degrees of dilution. In heartburn and acidity in the stomach and prims via;, Carbonate of Ammonia is useful, not merely as a stimulant, but as neutralising the irritating acid matter; in such cases it may more conveniently be given in infusion of calumba. As a nasal stimulant, slrotig Liquid Ammonia has long been used for the relief of headache, faintness, and vertigo. As an external stimulant, combinations of Ammonia with oily substances are usually to be preferred. (See Hartshorn.) Ammonia is sometimes spoken of as an antidote for certain poisons, and more especially where persons have been bitten by venomous snakes. Eau de Luce (the compound Tincture Ammonia), which is strong Liquid Ammonia, flavoured with the oils of amber and lavender, and rendered milky by mastic, is among the remedies most esteemed in many parts of India. 'In very mild cases so powerful a stimulant is no doubt of real efficacy. Even the sting of the scorpion, and the bite of the viper are said to be thus successfully treated; but here, the symptoms are so various in different individuals, and so seldom fatal, that no specific virtue can be assigned to Ammonia upon such evidence.
Source: A Family Medicine Directory ©1855