Pharmacologia. 373 
only served to excite the ridicule of the dispenser, who soon 
discovered that, the ingredients in his mortar dissolved into a 
liquid.”” We can furnish Dr. Paris with a converse instance in 
the case of the syrup of senna of the late Pharmacopeia, which 
concreted into a solid, and, to the surprise of the physician, was 
sent to his patient in a pill-box. 
When powders are of difficult solubility, we must guard 
against their intestinal accumulation, by maintaining dur- 
ing their use, a regular alvine evacuation. Instances are on 
record, in which powdered bark and magnesia have been thus 
suffered to accumulate. Bread adulterated with the impal- 
pable felspar of Cornwall, and biscuits containing plaster of 
Paris, have created similar inconvenience. Sugar-plums are 
often similarly compounded, and children’s bowels are so im- 
patient of insoluble and extraneous contents, that, in respect to 
them, extreme precaution in these respects is necessary. We 
cordially join with Dr. Paris, in reprobating the practice lately 
suggested of improving bad flour by the addition of magnesia. 
“* T object,” he says, ‘* to the introduction of any foreign and 
insoluble substance into our daily bread; and I am satisfied that 
the result of medical experience will sanction such an objec- 
tion.” Vol. i. p. 332. 
Pills, and their peculiarities, are next treated of, and we trust 
that the suggestions here thrown out will not be wasted upon 
the compilers of the forthcoming Pharmacopeia, for it appears 
to us quite obvious that few pill masses should be there re- 
tained; they are apt to become either too soft or too hard by 
keeping; and in the latter case, we often see a hot spatula 
thrust into the pot for the removal of a portion of its indurated 
contents, and a hot pestle applied to render the mass tractable. 
To many extracts the same objection more forcibly applies, in 
consequence of the direction in the Pharmacopeia, that they 
should be “ evaporated until they have acquired a consistence 
proper for making pills.” The extracts of bark, sarsaparilla, 
and white poppy, and the compound extract of colocynth, are 
particularly open to these remarks. Perhaps the best way of 
getting over the difficulty, would be to desiccate them in all 
cases in a water-bath, until they admit of being powdered ; by 
which, uniformity in their activity and convenience in their em- 
ployment, would be most effectually attained. The ingredients 
for pills might also be kept in a pulverulent state, and rendered 
into a mass when used. 
This volume concludes with a collection of formulz, in- 
tended to illustrate its precepts, and to furnish the inexperi- 
enced prescriber with a series of useful and instructive lessons ; 
these we have carefully perused, and find them judiciously 
composed and selected, but the system of key letters, which 
seems to be a hobby with Dr. Paris, we cannot applaud; few 
