# Dover’s powder

**Pulvis ipecacuanhae compositus*; *pulvis Doveri**

**Known today as.** [Ipecacuanha](https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/ipecacuanha) and [opium](https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/opium-poppy), with salts, in a powder.

Kind: Compound  
Poisoning: Opioid poisoning (https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/poisons/opioid)

## What was it used for?

Against gout, taken at bedtime in a white-wine posset and sweated out under warm covers; later a sweating powder for the onset of colds, by an 1888 account “of almost daily use in medical practice.”

## What does modern science say?

It contained opium.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **morphine**: 10 per cent opium
- **emetine**: 10 per cent ipecacuanha

**Mechanism.** A diaphoretic in incipient colds and an anodyne in gastric pain, by the BPC of 1911; a tenth of it was opium, whose chief constituent is morphine.

**Dose.** Five to fifteen grains (BPC 1911), a tenth of it opium.

**Standing.** In the British pharmacopoeias into the twentieth century.

## What lore surrounds it?

Thomas Dover, who published it in *The Ancient Physician’s Legacy to His Country*, had been a privateer: in 1709 his expedition rescued the castaway Alexander Selkirk, whose story suggested Defoe’s *Robinson Crusoe*, and sacked the city of Guayaquil.

## Sources

- Dover, T. (1732). *The Ancient Physician’s Legacy to His Country*.
- Moore, N. (1888). Dover, Thomas. *Dictionary of National Biography* 15.
- *The British Pharmaceutical Codex* (1911). London: Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. Monographs as transcribed at Henriette’s Herbal Homepage, henriettes-herb.com.
- Dover, T. (1732). *The Ancient Physician’s Legacy*.

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*Dover’s powder.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-03. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/dovers-powder

Historical description, not medical advice.