166 
ON ARNICINA. 
and exposed to the air, all the chemical conditions necessary 
for the formation of a soluble and dangerous salt of lead exist. 
The cistern is the metal; the water itself, or the air contained in 
it, supplies the oxygen by which a portion of that metal is 
oxidized; and with the oxide thus formed the free acid also 
present readily combines. 
ON ARNICINA, 
A NEW ORGANIC BASE FROM ARNICA MONTANA*; 
WITH SOME REMARKS ON THE GENERAL METHODS OF ISOLATING 
ALKALOIDS. 
By Mr. William Bastick. 
THERE is, perhaps, no inquiry more interesting and important 
to the physician and the pharmaceutist than that which has for 
its object the discovery of organic bases, especially when 
directed to those substances of the materia medica which stand 
in high and deserved repute. 
The reason of this importance and interest is manifest, when 
we consider how extensively the salts of quinine have dis- 
placed the use of bark, and the salts of morphia that of opium ; 
and that it may be laid down as a law in pharmaceutical 
chemistry, that, when a plant contains an organic base, then 
that organic base is the active principle of the plant. 
The time is probably not long distant when the salts of conia, 
hyoscyamia, and atropine, will be found in the Pharmacopoeia, 
to the exclusion of those necessarily uncertain preparations, 
tinctures and extracts of conium, hyoscyamus, and belladonna, 
as recommended by Liebig and other distinguished authorities. 
The number of vegetable bodies containing alkaloids is, I 
believe, much more extensive than is generally expected, 
judging from the investigations already published, and the light 
which analogy sheds on the chemical constitution of plants. 
The importance of the discovery of morphia by Sertiirner, in 
1804 , is scarcely possible to be over-estimated ; for he was the 
pioneer who led the way in a department of pharmaceutical 
research which has enriched the materia medica with that 
valuable class of bodies the alkaloids, and promises still more 
numerous, if not more remarkable, acquisitions to it. 
No sooner had Sertiirner announced the method by which he 
had succeeded in eliminating morphia from opium, than the 
continental pharmaceutists, with a worthy rivalry, commenced 
* The tincture of arnica has been used with advantage in veterinary medi- 
cine. — E d. Vet. 
