NITRIC ACID ON VARIOUS VEGETABLES. 
431 
I do not however think it is at all necessary to employ chemically pure scoparine 
for medical purposes. If a decoction of broom is evaporated to dryness on the water- 
bath, then treated with a little dilute hydrochloric acid, the mixture thrown upon a 
filter and washed with a small quantity of cold water, almost the whole of the spar- 
teine will be removed, and the dark green gelatinous mass remaining on the filter 
will be found to possess the diuretic, without the narcotic properties of the plant. , 
I have already mentioned that the first quantity of the broom employed in this in- 
vestigation was grown on sandy ground, freely exposed to the sun and air. A decoc- 
tion was also made from a second quantity of very tall broom from 5 to 6 feet in 
height, which grew in a shady copse in the neighbourhood of Lanark. Its decoction 
had only a slightly bitter taste, and it did not yield more than one-fourth so much 
either scoparine or sparteine as the first quantity of broom had done ; though the 
botanical properties of both plants were precisely the same. 
This observation may perhaps help to explain the somewhat discordant results 
which eminent medical practitioners have experienced in regard to the diuretic effects 
of broom, — sometimes it having acted powerfully, while at others it appeared to be 
ineffective. Now, may not this have arisen from the circumstance that they had 
sometimes employed broom which had grown in a favourable, and sometimes that 
which had grown in a disadvantageous situation, and which therefore varied exceed- 
ingly in its medical properties ? 
Glasgow, November 16, 1850. 
