fe iy 
176 Miscellanies. 
servation, if any, is multiplied in the higher numbers. He proposes 
to construct an instrument, of which one hundred degrees shall rep- 
resent an increase or decrease of two tenths of specific gravity, water 
being zero, and the scale equally givided. 
After adverting to the limitation of the use of the hydrometer by 
the unequal expansion of different fluids by heat, a copious table is 
inserted, calculated from the very copious tables, prepared by direc- 
tion of the British Excise, exhibiting the per centage of alcohol of 
.825 specific gravity, indicated by each degree of the hydrometer 
for every five degrees of temperature, from 30° to 80° of Fahrenheit. 
The second number contains an article on James’s Fever Powders 
by Dr. Samuel Jackson, who infers, as well from the various analy- 
ses of this substance, as from a trial of it in the alms house, Phila 
delphia, that it is an inert and wholly useless preparation, and should 
be expunged from the Pharmacopceia. 
_ In the same number we find a very judicious article on the Black 
Drop, by Thomas Evans, in which the writer shows plainly enough, 
we think, that this celebrated preparation is very improperly called in 
_ the most noted pharmacopwias, the vinegar of opium,—that it is in 
fact a compound syrup of opium, exceedingly clumsy and unscientii 
in its preparation, and that administering such a mixture, the practr 
tioner can never know what quantity of opium he is giving The 
writer however, who is an experienced pharmacien, admits the ad- 
vantage of acetic acid as a solvent of opium. ‘* Some years 2g? (he 
observes) Dr. Joseph Hartshorne directed the preparation of such ® 
tincture, according to the following recipe, viz. 
Turkey opium, - - - = 3 il 
Strong vinegar, = - - ~ «;. 3 f..xi. 
‘s 3 fv. 
co! - - ~ iil. 
Triturate the opium with the yinegar; add the alcohol, and. diges! 
with gentle heat for ten days; then filter through paper er 
This has been extensively used, and found to possess all the virtue 
of the black drop. As a substitute for common strong vinegaly ¥ 
is often impure, and of uncertain strength, the writer propos?’ - 
pyroligneous acid 3 f. v, with water 3 f. vii, and the same proportions 
as before stated of alcohol and opium. Shea: oes 
The fourth number of the new series of the Journal, contains the 
excellent discourse of the President, to which we have alluded 
in which the young apothecary will find an interesting account® 
civ 
progress and condition of the pharmaceutic art, in the most 
