766 
PROFESSOR MORTON’S 
they are imported. Let him also purchase from a druggist of re- 
spectability, and give a fair price for the article, and, then, he needs 
not to fear its adulteration. I have said the deceptions prac- 
tised are numerous ; thus, ginger and gentian root, and the various 
seeds, are almost always mixed with some other powders. But 
even should it be a genuine article that is sent to the mill, it is 
commonly such as could not have been disposed of in any other 
form than that of powder; and then the drug-grinder plays his 
part, and seldom fails to effect some admixture. 
in chemicals, and such substances as undergo some preparation, 
the amount of adulteration is oftentimes enormous. Thus, aloes 
have been mixed with resin and lamp-black ; the balsam of copaiba 
with turpentine and resin ; iodine with plumbago, and the sesqui- 
sulphuret of antimony with the same substance ; the mercurial 
ointment has contained little more than lard and colouring matter ; 
calamine has been found to consist of the sulphate of barytes, co- 
loured with iron ; the ergot of rye has had mixed with it masses 
similar in appearance, made of the plaster of paris ; calomel has 
been adulterated with the sulphate of barytes, and even cor- 
rosive sublimate has been detected in it; the essential oils have 
been mixed with the fixed oils, or with alcohol ; acetic acid with 
sulphuric acid ; the nitrate of silver with the nitrate of lead ; and 
the dregs of the tincture of opium bottle have been dried and pow- 
dered, and sold as the pulverized drug. These are some of the 
tricks practised by the designing on the unwary ; and what means 
have we of detecting them but an appeal to the principles of 
chemistry ? 
Thus, sulphuric acid detects the nitrate of lead in the nitrate of 
silver, and barytes in the carbonate of zinc ; lime-water will make 
manifest the admixture of corrosive sublimate with calomel ; the 
barytic salts the presence of sulphuric acid in the acetic acid ; 
while simply melting will render evident the colouring matter in 
the mercurial ointment, and solution the additional resin in the 
aloes. Equally easy tests may be had recourse to for the ex- 
posure of other adulterations. Yet it is to chemistry we are in- 
debted for them ; and hence arises one among the many reasons 
why it should be taught in our medical schools. 
The necessity of your becoming conversant with the medicines 
you employ is becoming daily more obvious ; for it has been re- 
marked that "‘the public are learning that there is no charm in 
medicine, and that drugs are to the physician what instruments 
are to the surgeon — indispensable tools, and nothing but tools — 
more likely to do mischief than good if not properly handled.” 
It is not that the precise form of the ball or draught is of any 
importance, but the when and where its active principles are 
