Plaster, diachylon

The remedy is the substitution of soap, which, by its slight excess of alkali, rendering soluble in and miscible with water all the dirty grease of the clothos and oily sxudations from the pores of the skin, is at the same time detersive Itself for, though composed of oil and alkali in a state of combination, it still possesses the influence of the lattar without any of its hurtfulness. Oleate of oxide of lead, formerly called lead soap, is insoluble, and constitutes the diachylon plaster of pharmacy. The analogous salts of zinc and lime, formerly termed zinc soap and lime soap, are also insoluble. 

Lead was still being used medically and in the early part of the nineteenth century for its action on the blood. Salts of lead were found to be haemostatic and were used for the treatment of ulcers because of their ability to coagulate albuminous material. Until recently, lead compounds could be found in the British Pharmacopoea, including lead and opium solution (a mixture of Goulard s water and laudanum) and Diachylon plasters, which use lead oxide as a base. However, the 1980 B.P. does not list any lead or lead-containing preparations. 

Diachylon 043 A plaster made out of litharge and either olive oil or olive oil and lard, hence consisting essentially of lead oleate mixed with small amounts of glycerin and oleic acid. It is used for skinned surfaces and wounds and as an adhesive. 

In 1890, Alice worked in Leicester, England, as a machinist. She was thirty-three, married, and had four children. She was pregnant with yet another child. Perhaps her motivation was financial—she worked in an era when married women worked not by choice but out of necessity— or perhaps she just did not want another child. Whatever the case, Alice wanted an abortion. She purchased diachylon (lead plaster), rolled it into pills, and ate the pills. An abortion was induced a short time later. But Alice s homemade pills had some undesired side effects. She developed severe pains in her abdomen and extremities, javmdice, constipation, vomiting, and tremors in her hands. She entered the Leicester Infirmary on September 10, 1890, and by September 13, she had become comatose. She died soon thereafter. Alice s pills had not only terminated her pregnancy, they had also delivered her a fatal dose of lead. ... 

Alice is case I in Pope (1893). On the growing use of lead plaster as means of birth control and abortion during this period, see also Wrangham (1901), Hall (1905), Branson (1899), Hall and Ransom (1906), and Ransom (1900). For a modern essay that places the use of diachylon in its broader historical context, see Sauer (1978). 

Hall, Arthur, and W. B. Ransom. 1906. Plumbism from the Ingestion of Diachylon [lead plaster] as an Abortifacient. British Medical Journal, February 24, pp. 428-430. 

Poincare, Henri. 1952. Science and Hypothesis. New York Dover Publications. Pope, Frank M. 1893. Two Cases of Poisoning by the Self-Administration of Diachylon—Lead Plaster—For the Purpose of Procuring Abortion. British... 

---