[Morphine by external route, prescribed to Heinrich Heine by David Gruby].

The exhibition held in Paris commemorating the bicentenial of Heinrich Heine showed three prescriptions by Dr. D. Gruby, through which morphine was prescribed for the poet by external route. The use of morphine was justified in a patient with unrelieved pain caused by neurosyphilis during the last twelve years of his life. This way of morphine administration (endemic method) was quite popular between 1830 and 1860. The process consisted in stripping the derm with the help of a vesicant and in applying directly on it morphine salts crystals. Several authors commented the interest of this way of administration rather uncomfortable for the patient but apparently very effective.