Stramonium Leaves,half a pound.
Alcohol at 95°,a sufficient quantity.
Prepared lard,fourteen ounces.

Moisten the leaves, previously reduced to a coarse powder, with sufficient alcohol, in a tight vessel having a suitable cover; melt the lard in a pan three times in capacity to the bulk of the lard, and stir in it gradually the prepared stramonium; keep the mixture in a warm place for five hours, stirring occasionally, till the alcohol has disappeared from the ointment, which may be ascertained by placing a lighted match on the surface of the warm ointment just stirred. Filter the mixture through flannel, in an appropriate vessel. The stramonium ointment thus prepared is a reliable preparation, possessed of a handsome green color, a rather pleasant herbaceous odor, and forms a homogeneous mass containing all the valuable constituents of the Datura stramonium, if the leaves have been gathered while the plant is in bud, and properly preserved. For the warm days of summer the substitution of two ounces of beeswax for the same quantity of lard gives it the consistence which it has at the low temperature of the remaining seasons.

{15}

COMPOUND FLUID EXTRACT OF SENNA AND DANDELION. BY EUGENE DUPUY, PHARMACEUTIST, NEW YORK CITY.

Senna (officinal),two pounds.
Torrefied Dandelion Root,one pound.
Chamomile,quarter of a pound.
Sugar,twenty ounces.
Carbonate of Potash or Soda,one ounce.
Oil of Gaultheria,half a drachm.
Alcohol,two ounces.
Water,half a gallon.

Mix the dry plants, previously reduced to a coarse powder, with the water holding the alkaline carbonate in solution; let the mixture stand twelve hours; introduce it in a percolator, and gradually pour in water until a gallon of liquid shall have passed; evaporate it to twenty ounces by means of a water bath, then add the sugar, filter, and make the addition of the alcoholic solution of gaultheria when cold. By following this process, I believe that a kind of saponification takes place, which allows of the more ready solution of the active principle of the senna in the aqueous vehicle, probably because chlorophylle being united to a dried essential oil, participating in the properties of resins, is rendered soluble, and the extractive portion being denuded of its resinoid covering, is more readily extracted by the percolating liquid. I make use of a percolator possessed of a convenient hydraulic power; it has rendered readily, within thirty hours, a highly saturated liquid, containing in a gallon all the soluble principles of this extract. Ordinary percolators will answer also; but the ingredients needing to be more loosely packed, do not yield so fully or so readily. The addition of torrefied dandelion root is intended to give to this fluid extract some greater value on account of its peculiar action on the hepatic system. I employ in preference the German chamomile (Camomila vulgaris[3]), because of its pleasant aroma and its carminative properties, joined to a bitter principle, which seems to increase the purgative effect of the senna.

This extract has become a favorite anti-bilious purgative with many of {16} our practitioners, who, some of them at least, have used it with success with children, who can take it readily, as well as for adults, where an anti-bilious purgative is desirable, seldom producing pain or nausea, and not liable to induce constipation.

[3] Matricaria.