State of Pliarman/ in Fiance. 241 



■" Si Ton veut y joindre des plantes, il faut Ics moler dans la 

 cucurbite avec les lima9ons." 



Whether these bouillons formed a part of the Pharmacopoeia 

 of 1748, we are not informed; if they did not, they are of 

 course to be considered as rendering the present work " plus 

 riche en preparations simples," and there are parts of these 

 directions that have the strongest claim to the praise of " exac- 

 titude ;" — the nature of the food by which the snails have been 

 nourished, their number, weight, their being bruised on marble 

 by wood, the use of 1,000 parts of water, and ^jj of a part more, 

 all prove in the clearest manner, that the manufacture of this 

 broth has received the attention of no novice in the art. 



The syrups of this pharmacopcEia are a numerous and 

 nauseous assemblage ; the general use of them is to render 

 those medicines tolerable which are in themselves disagreeable ; 

 but many of the syrups in this work are not only disgusting, 

 but must render other medicines nauseating. Sulphuret of 

 potash, for example, forms the basis of a syrup, a compound 

 which, in solution, is so nearly allied in flavour to putrid eggs, 

 that syrup might be indifferently made from either ; and as 

 we have Bouillon de mou de Veau, so we have syrup of the 

 same very eligible material. Whether the sirop is to sweeten 

 the bouillon, or the bouillon to wash down the sirop, are 

 questions which I have no means of deciding. 



The tinctures are such as might be expected to be found 

 associated with the syrups : take an example, — the " Teinture 

 Aromatique composee ;" it is compounded of eighteen of the 

 most insignificant herbs, such as sage, thyme, and fennel. 

 Surely this tincture belongs to the class of " medicamens com- 

 poses" which might have been rejected. 



Opium is served up in a variety of ways, no one of which ap- 

 pears to be good, and most of them extremely bad. The first is 

 " Extrait d' Opium prepare au vin." In this we have merely 

 directions for dissolving opium in wine, and cva})orating the 

 solution to the consistence of an extract. It is well known 

 that a great portion of the more active part of opium is in- 

 soluble in water, and therefore though wine is not so good a 

 Vol. IX. Q 



