26 JOURNAL OF THE [January, 



Morphine, that will not decompose at a low temperature, can 

 be sterilized in solution, by raising to the boiling point and 

 securely corking. In this way they will keep for years. 



The hygienic considerations connected with this subject are 

 of the first importance to us as medical men. Can it be con- 

 ducive to health to swallow any of these, whatever their name, 

 shape or order ? It is positively known that Mistura Creta, 

 prepared from decomposed Cinnamon-Water, has made cases 

 of summer complaint in children worse, and induced emesis at 

 every dose. The London Lancet (Jan. 29th, 1885, p. 224.) 

 showed that solutions containing such growths, irritated and 

 eroded mucous membranes to which they were applied. The 

 Mucors have been found in the stomachs of dogs in full fruition, 

 in spite of the presence of gastric juice. They grew and flour- 

 ished there embedded in its walls. Almost every tissue of birds 

 and beasts have been found infested with them. Sternberg, in 

 his work on Bacteria, p. 293, gives a drawing of a growth from 

 the fauces of patients suffering with Anginal Scarlatina, that is 

 exceedingly like some of these we are studying to-night. Hypo- 

 dermic injections of solutions of alkaloids often produce bad 

 abscesses in an unaccountable manner. After investigation 

 clears up the trouble, by showing the solutions to be infected 

 with these plants. Too much care cannot be taken in seeing to 

 the purity and cleanliness of the drugs we prescribe. Probably 

 half the druggists of the country never notice these changes in 

 their solutions, or suppose them to be mere precipitates of the 

 active agents, and therefore harmless. Very few of them indeed 

 know that wriggling, twining maggot-like bodies are there, the 

 thought of swallowing which is enough to turn one's stomach, 

 even if they did not physically act as emetics. Until they are 

 taught these facts no effort at improvement can be so much as 

 hoped for. Some of them even melt ice, and use it as distilled 

 water, to put up such solutions with, and we all know, that our 

 supply of ice from the Hudson is contaminated with the sewer- 

 age of Albany and Troy, containing typhoid fever germs. Our 

 bodies may have strength enough to resist the small number of 

 these, introduced from a glass of ice-water, but when druggists 

 deliberately use our medical supplies as culture fluids, who 

 knows when they may raise the number so high, that the disease 

 is given to patients with minor affections ? 



