RESINA PODOPHYLLI 251 



by him with nearly fatal effects. Dr. King described 

 this resin, which may be designated as "the resinoid 

 forerunner," as it constituted the first American mem- 

 ber of that list of substances, in the Philosophical Jour- 

 nal and Transactions, 1844, Vol. I, pp. 157-165. 1 



THE NAME. The substance was introduced by Dr. 

 King under the name, Resin of Podophyllum. He de- 

 scribes the process of its production as follows: 



"I obtain only the resin, by extracting all that alcohol 

 will take up, then filter the alcoholic tincture, to which 

 I add an equal amount of water, and separate the alco- 

 hol by distillation the resin sinks in the water." West- 

 ern Medical Reformer, 1846, p. 176. 



Without materially altering the product, Dr. King 

 afterward improved his process by evaporating the 

 alcoholic tincture to a cream, pouring the residue into 

 cold water and collecting the precipitated resin. Ac- 

 cepting that the substance he had discovered was a true 

 resin, Dr. King applied to it the formal title, "Resin of 

 Podophyllum," but when the substance came finally 

 into general use, this title seemed too cumbersome. 



COMMERCIAL INTRODUCTION. In 1847, at the sug- 

 gestion of Dr. John King, Dr. Wm. S. Merrell, a phar- 

 macist then located at Court and Plum Streets, Cin- 

 cinnati, prepared the resin, which he introduced to the 

 medical and pharmaceutical professions under the terse 

 term Podophyllin. It was the first of the so-called 

 Eclectic resinoids. Considerable acrid controversy in 

 the Eclectic ranks followed, in connection with the 

 subject of "resinoids" and their names, as shown in the 

 current pages of the Worcester Journal of Medicine 



' See Bulletin No. 12, 1910, (Pharmacy Series No. 2), of the Lloyd Library of Botany, 

 Pharmacy and Materia Medica, titled, The Eclectic Alkaloids. Resins, Resinoids, 

 Oleo-Resins and Concentrated Principles. 



