[115]. These views have prevailed upon the Committee of the College, and they have accordingly restored the Soap to the formula, in the present edition of the Pharmacopœia; so that the above objection no longer exists.
[116]. The only chemical phenomenon which in any manner resembles this, appears to be that of the rapid acetification of milk, and other fluids, by the agency of a thunder storm.
[117]. This practice was introduced into France by Seguin, into Italy by Couticini, and into Germany by Bischoff.
[118]. A very ingenious Dissertation has been lately published by M. Virey, on the ‘Degeneration of Plants in foreign soils,’ which he says may depend upon 1, Climate and Station; 2, Nutriment; 3, Culture; 4, Factitious Mutilation; 5, Hybrid Generation.
[119]. Women during the period of gestation frequently experience such an increased irritability as to be affected even in England by various odours, which at other times would produce no extraordinary impression.
[120]. This plant was first described by Gmelin in his Flora Siberica, iv. 121. It has obtained a place in the Edinburgh Pharmacopœia. Besides the effects stated by Dr. Halliday, it is said by different authors to excite a peculiar creeping sensation in the pained part.
[121]. Journal Complementaire du Dict. des Sciences Medicales, tom. II.
[122]. Dr. Murett in his “Short view of Frauds and Abuses,” (A. D. 1669) charges the Apothecary with “falsifying Medicines;” “They shewed the Censors,” says he, “Myrtles leaves for Senna; a Binder for a Purger; Mushrooms rubbed over with chalk for Agaric; Hemlock for Pæony; Sheep’s lungs for Fox’s lungs; and the bone of an Ox’s heart, for that of a Stag’s heart.”
[123]. The editors of the American Medical Recorder (vol. 1, p. 471), in descanting upon the efficacy of Prussic Acid, very gravely remark, that they are acquainted with a lady, subject to hysteric affections, who always derives relief from a dose of Cherry Brandy, in which Peach kernels have been digested; the stimulus of the brandy then goes for nothing with these blockheads! Zimmerman not unaptly compares a man who is intoxicated with a favourite opinion, to a passionate lover, who sees and hears nothing but his mistress.
[124]. Bezoar, (from Pa-zahar, Persian, a destroyer of poison.) A morbid concretion formed in the bodies of land animals. Several of them were formerly highly celebrated for their medicinal virtues; they were considered as powerful Alexipharmics, in so much so, that other medicines, possessed of alexipharmic powers, were called Bezoardics: so efficacious were these substances formerly considered that they were bought for ten times their weight of gold. Avenzoar, an Arabian physician, who practised at Seville in Spain about the year One Thousand, first recommended it in medicine. A composition of Bezoar with absorbent powers, has been extensively used under the name of Gascoigne powder, and Gascoigne’s Ball; but the real bezoar was rarely used on this occasion; Gypsum, or pipe-clay tinged with ox-gall, proved a less expensive ingredient.