PHIL′TRE. Syn. Philtrum, L. A charm or potion to excite love. The ancients had great faith in such remedies. Nothing certain is now known respecting their composition; but there is sufficient evidence that recourse was frequently had to them by the ancients, and that “their operation was so violent that many persons lost their lives and their reason by their means.” The Thessalian philtres were those most celebrated. (Juv., vi, 610, &c.) At the present day the administration of preparations of the kind is interdicted by law.
PHLORE′TIN. C15H14O5. A crystallisable, sweet substance, formed along with grape sugar, when phloridzin is acted on by dilute acids.
PHLORID′ZIN. C21H24O10. Syn. Phlorizine; Phloridzinum, L. Prep. By acting on the fresh root-bark of the apple, pear, or plum tree, with boiling rectified spirit; the spirit is distilled off, and the phloridzin
crystallises out of the residual liquor as it cools.
Prop., &c. Fine, colourless, silky needles, freely soluble in rectified spirit and in hot water, but requiring 1000 parts of cold water for its solution; its taste is bitter and astringent. When its solution is boiled with a little dilute sulphuric acid or hydrochloric acid, it is changed into grape sugar and phloretin.
Phloridzin bears a great likeness to salicin. It is said to be a powerful febrifuge.—Dose, 3 to 15 gr.
PHOCE′NIC ACID. See Delphinic acid.
PHŒNIC′INE. See Indigo purple.
PHO′NOGRAPH. Some years back Prof. Faber, of Vienna, constructed and exhibited in the chief cities of Europe ‘a talking machine,’ which was able to articulate simple words and sentences with considerable distinctness. The complex mechanism by which this was effected was contrived upon the principles of the human organs of speech, as the machine possessed an india-rubber tongue and lips, and an artificial larynx, made out of a thin vibrating tube of ivory. Faber’s automaton, although of much greater scientific interest than the automatic flute and flageolet players of Vancanson, the trumpeter of Droz, and similar exhibitions of curious workmanship, was, like these, only a mechanical curiosity, without any promise of a useful application.
Entirely distinct from Faber’s machine, not only structurally and in the method by which it produces its effects, but also in the end