Miscellanies. 185 



the most important articles of the Materia Medica, are scarcely less 

 curious than satisfactory, and are clearly described by Mr. Carpen- 

 ter — for instance, opium, bark, sarsaparilla, and the oil of canihari- 

 din. This oil supersedes, most mercifully, the common mode of 

 blistering. It is produced by separating in a crystallized state the 

 vesicating principle of the Spanish flies, and dissolving that in oil. 

 This preparation seems to possess remarkable advantages over the 

 ordinary epispastics. A few drops of it, applied to any part of the 

 body, effectually draws, in six or eight hours, a complete blister, and 

 with a degree of pain and inconvenience comparatively slight for the 

 patient : or a piece of paper, made to imbibe a portion of it, forms 

 an excellent blister, which may be adapted to any part however 

 irregular, and the consequent verification is circumscribed and de- 

 fined exactly with the paper."* 



As. Mr. Carpenter's valuable manual must soon require a reprint, 

 we will beg leave to suggest, that an attentive literary revision of the 

 work, will add new attractions to the great intrinsic value which it cer- 

 tainly possesses; and if we were to add another remark, it would be, 

 that the less of the spirit of trade appears in a work of science the better. 



12. Franklin Institution ofJYeiu Haven. — A patriotic and enter- 

 prising citizen of New Haven, Mr. James Brewster, a practical 

 mechanic, and long well known for his extensive manufactory of ex- 

 cellent carriages, has recently erected, at his own expense, an estab- 

 lishment for popular lectures. Mr. Brewster has devoted two stories 

 of a large and handsome building to this purpose. One of them is oc- 

 cupied by the lecture room and laboratory, and the other by a cabinet 

 of natural history, and apartments for those who may be connected 

 with the institution. -j- The lecture room will contain three hundred 

 persons ; it is airy, well lighted, and finished in good taste. It is 

 equally well adapted to lectures, of an intellectual character only, as 

 to those of experiment and illustration by machines and models, and 

 by specimens in natural history. An apparatus is already collected, 

 and will be, from time to time, enlarged, and the cabinet of natural 

 history, of three or four thousand specimens, is rich in minerals, rocks 

 and shells. 



* See the more detailed account of ihe preparation and properties of cantharidin 

 at p. 69 of this No. 



1 With apartment also for lodging rooms. 



Vol. IL— No. 1. 24 



