40 



in furthering the objects which the Academy have done so 

 much to promote, I cannot but feel assured that Mr. Water- 

 house, who has derived a great pecuniary benefit from our ex- 

 ertions to create an interest in such remains, will feel it due 

 to us, in return, to give a deaf ear to all temptations to seduce 

 him to let this brooch out of Ireland, and that he will have a 

 pleasure, as well as feel it his interest, to see it placed in its 

 proper depository." 



Dr. Apjohn made an oral communication in relation to a 

 process. recently employed by him for the artificial production 

 of valerianic acid. 



He stated that, as must be well known to many members 

 of the Academy, the root of the Valerianas officinalis, or native 

 plant, is much employed for medical purposes, and that diffe- 

 rent pharmaceutic processes have been devised for extracting 

 from it powerful antispasmodic medicines. Now, of the sub- 

 stances existing in the root, and which admit of being separa- 

 ted from it, the most remarkable are a peculiar volatile oil, and 

 an acid of a fatty nature; the former being the essential oil of 

 valerian, the latter the valerianic acid. The valerianic medi- 

 cines of the Pharmacopoeia contain both these, and the therapeu- 

 tic virtues they exert, they owe, undoubtedly, to these princi- 

 ples. Reasoning from these facts, Prince Lucien Bonaparte, 

 who is well known to have devoted much attention to certain 

 departments of chemistry, first suggested the manufacture of 

 the valerianates as curative agents, and their introduction into 

 medical practice. But there is one great difficulty in the way 

 of employing these salts extensively in the treatment of disease; 

 they are very expensive, the cheapest of them, the valeria- 

 nate of zinc, costing so much as eighteen or twenty shillings 

 an ounce. It may be added that, from their high cost, a strong 

 inducement exists to their fraudulent adulteration; and that, in 

 point of fact, much of the valerianate of zinc at present in the 

 market is nothing but the butyrate of the same metal, upon 

 which a very minute quantity of a spirituous solution of the oil 



