Upon improvements in rendering medicinal preparations pleasing to the eye and taste, and agreeable to use : a paper read before the American Pharmaceutical Association at its Sixth Annual Meeting, (September 10th, 1857) / by Frederick Stearns.

  • Stearns, Frederick.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Upon improvements in rendering medicinal preparations pleasing to the eye and taste, and agreeable to use : a paper read before the American Pharmaceutical Association at its Sixth Annual Meeting, (September 10th, 1857) / by Frederick Stearns. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    centrated fluid representations of plants with but little alcohol; and in very many of those now preserved by means of alcohol, sugar might with advantage be substituted for that purpose. Among the non-officinal fluid extracts, those of arnica, black- berry, cranesbill, ginger, buchu, dandelion, dandelion and senna, hyoscyamus, and sarsaparilla compound, I consider especially eligible, and there is no doubt but that there are many other plants which experience will prove to be most valuable in the form of fluid extract. I have had occasion to prepare, during the past year, several saturated tinctiires, as some physicians think them less variable, and require much smaller doses. In preparing them I have used a considerable excess of the dried material over and above the amount calculated that the menstruum can exhaust. This method is wasteful, and is only applicable to local prescribing, and when the effects of such preparation can be closely watched. I have prepared as above, saturated tinctures of bloodroot, belladonna, henbane, lobelia, digitalis, conium, etc. The compound tincture of cardamom is one of the most ele- gant of adjuvants to mixtures of tinctures, etc., known. Most pharmaceutists color their essences or alcoholic solu- tions of the essential oils of peppermint, spearmint, pennyroyal, and the like, by means of curcuma. Now by placing a small portion of the dried plant, from which the essential oil is obtained, into the solution of oil previous to filtration, a color is obtained which is much more natural. A few red rose leaves impart to essence of winter-green a more delicate color than saunders or cochineal. The infusion of rose leaves forms a judicious addition to many extemporaneous mixtures, owing to its power of disguising taste, and to its beautiful color. The modern idea of preparing extemporaneously, and taking infusion of quassia, by drinking water from goblets made of quassia wood, has already become obsolete. In the preparation of cinnamon water, the essential oil of the true or Ceylon cinnamon should always be used, as it produces a medicated water of delightful flavor and agreeable odor. Of late years the ligneous portion of slippery elm bark, which is separated when this bark is ground from the mucilaginous