148 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
1827 Pharmacopoea Borussica 
1831 Pharmacopoea Slesvico-Holsatica 
1855 Pharmacopoea Austy*iaca 
1868 Pharmacopoea Danica 
While Macquer, 28 who was professor of Medicine and Chemistry 
at the University of Paris, points out that only quacks used arsenic 
for internal administration, the regular medical practitioners of 
the infirmary of Stafford, England, used the “Tasteless ague and 
fever drops,” a secret preparation, 29 during the years 1781, 1782, 
and 1783 as a remedy against intermittent fevers. This adoption 
of a “patent medicine” 30 by the physicians of the infirmary, 
caused the apothecary Hughes to analyse 30 and imitate 31 this secret 
preparation, basing his experiments on the “pharmaceutic his¬ 
tory” of arsenic found in Lewis’s Materia Medica. 32 Even of the 
milder sulphide minerals, Lewis makes the following statement: 
“The native minerals have been used as medicines in the eastern 
countries, and by some imprudently recommended in our own”. 
(Materia Medica, p. 104.) 
According to the account of Dr. Withering of Birmingham, this 
physician used a simple solution of arsemcum album, one grain to 
each ounce of distilled water, the solution being “facilitated by 
boiling for a minute or two in a Florence Flask, or other glass 
vessel”. “Long continued boiling” he adds “disposes it to pre¬ 
cipitate again ’ \ 33 The same formula was employed by Dr. Arnold 
of Leicester 34 who directs the solution to be filtered. While this 
solution was satisfactory in hospital practice, where the quantity 
28 Diet, of Chemistry, p. 103: “Arsenic is a very violent corrosive poison: 
it produces always the most painful symptoms and fatal effects, whether it be 
taken internally or applied externally. It ought never to be employed medi¬ 
cinally, although some people not very intelligent, give small doses of it in 
obstinate intermittent fevers, which it effectually cures, but is always attended 
with bad consequences to the patients, such as phthisis, and other no less 
troublesome diseases.” 
29 Fowler, Medical Reports, Preface, p. vii. 
30 Ibidem, Preface, p. vi; See also Wootton, On patent medicines in Appendix. 
Ibidem, p. 124, Withering, letter to Fowler. 
31 Ibidem, Preface, p. vii. 
32 An Experimental History of the Materia Medica of the Natural and Arti¬ 
ficial Substances Made Use of in Medicine. Containing A Compendious View 
of their Natural History, An Account of their Pharmaceutic Properties, And 
an Estimate of their Medicinal Powers, so far as they can be ascertained by 
Experience, or by rational Induction from their sensible Qualities. By William 
Lewis , London. 1761. 
83 Fowler, Medical Reports, p. 124. 
34 Ibidem, p. 117. 
