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
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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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    Its preservative power is available for the preservation of vaccine lymph, the recent dry scales of which can be dissolved in it and kept unchanged for a length of time. , It is proposed that it be substituted for sugar in some of those medicinal syrups which are so liable to ferment. The properties attributed to it as a fattener would give additional value to it as a vehicle for ague remedies, as in syr. ipecac, syr. scillae comp. Its bland and soothing properties when applied to the skin in an irritated or inflamed state, have caused it to be much used therefor. And I have seen numerous creams, balsams, lotions, etc., prepared from it by various pharmaceutists, many of which exhibit skill and taste. The lozenge or pastill has become so common a form in which to exhibit medicinal substances, powders, extracts, juices, essential oils, etc., that I shall notice herein only the following : the effi- ciency of santonin as an anthelmintic has given rise to its ex- tensive employment in the form of a bonbon or lozenge, deli- cately flavored, and rose colored ; it forms in this shape by far the best and most eligible worm lozenge extant. The preparations termed Lactinates find some favor among medical men ; they are simply saturated tinctures of any medical plant, inspissated upon cane sugar, or sugar of milk. The appli- cability of this process depends upon the active principle of the plant not being decomposed by the necessary heat employed in preparing them. I have prepared lactinates of sanguinaria, ipe- cacuanha, hyoscyamus, digitalis, which possessed perfectly the characteristic odors and properties of those medicines. Homoeopathic globules are made of flour and cane sugar, not of milk sugar, and why can we not learn from the infinitesimal dose- givers something ? These pellets (the largest of those they use weighs \ of a grain) could be made of any size, and when medi- cated by means of concentrated alcoholic solutions of the more powerful alkaloids, would prove a very agreeable method of ad- ministering them. The usual methods of rendering pills less repulsive by means of coating them with gelatin, gold or silver foil, dried mucilage of linseed, seems to be far superseded by the new and elegant method introduced by French pharmaceutists, by which they are covered with gluten and sugar. Odor and taste are destroyed by converting them into bonbons. By this new method the odor of