Many alcoholic liniments are therefore employed for the relief of pain, especially muscular pains, as in lumbago and other forms of so-called "muscular rheumatism."
The prescriptions are for a great variety of ailments and afflictionsdiseases of the eye and the stomach, sores and broken bones, to make the hair grow, to keep away snakes, fleas, &c. Purgatives and diuretics are particularly numerous, and the medicines take the form of pillules, draughts, liniments, fumigations, &c. The prescriptions are often fanciful and may thus bear some absurd relation to the disease to be cured, but generally they would be to some extent effective.
In chronic rheumatism the chief remedies are salicylate of soda, and its allies iodide of potassium, guaiacum and sulphur, while massage, liniments and baths are beneficial as local applications.
Liniments containing opium, belladonna or aconite rubbed into the affected part will often soothe the most severe local pain.
The drug is largely employed as a counterirritant, the pharmacopoeial liniments being very useful applications.