Tartar Emetic
Tartar Emetic is a poem by Arthur Conan Doyle written during his beginnings at the Edinburgh University of Medicine years (1876) on the titlepage The Essentials of Materia Medica and Therapeutics (by Alfred Baring Garrod, 1869 edition, Edinburgh).
Arthur Conan Doyle wrote several poems on specific medical products (Opium, Tartar Emetic, Quinine, Ether, Arsenic, Corrosive Sublimate, Liquor Potassoe, Mercury...). Probably as a mnemonic technique.
Tartar Emetic
From one sixth to one sixteenth of a grain,
Is a diaphoretic well known to fame,
And the tidings have far & wide been diffused,
That as an expectorant also its used,
While its cholagogue action, I'll venture to say,
Would be matched by few in a long summer day,
3 grains as a mighty emetic is known,
With a purgsedativeaction all its own,
'Tis a sedative too to vessels and heart,
And an irritant fits applied to a part.
