26 
A PEW WORDS ON OPIUM. 
Hard indeed to satisfy must that man be whom the new edition of the British 
Pharmacopoeia fails to please. Blemishes it may have,—as, for instance, the 
absurd formula for solution of chloride of gold ; yet, taken altogether, the work 
is admirable. Still, like all such works, it contains much matter concerning 
which diversity of opinion is sure to exist; and it is upon a question of this 
kind that I venture to make a few remarks. * 
The Pharmacopoeia gives a process for the approximate estimation of 
morphia in opium, and requires that 100 grains of the uudried drug shall yield 
“ at least from six to eight grains” of the alkaloid. Tried by this u test,” all 
opium which contains more than 6 per cent, of morphia may be said to be of offi¬ 
cinal strength. But as 10 or 11 per cent, of that principle, and sometimes more, 
can be obtained from good samples of opium, it is evident that the strength of 
this, “the most important and valuable remedy of the whole Materia Medica,” 
is far from being well defined in the above work. 
With all due deference to those high authorities whose names appear at the 
end of the preface to the book, it does seem to me that a more rigid morphio- 
metric test might have been adopted with advantage. It is in the state of 
powder, coarse or fine, that opium is used in making the various preparations— 
all except the extract and the salts of morphia. - Why, then, shoufil there not 
be a standard opium in powder, yielding, by the prescribed method, a tolerably 
definite quantity, say 10 per cent of morphia ? It might easily be prepared by 
mixing in suitable proportions two samples of the powder, one of which con¬ 
tained more, the other less, than the required quantity of the alkaloid. The 
humidity of the powder usually amounts to 5 or 6 per cent, of its weight; but 
small differences in this respect would be of little moment. 
If I mistake not, the adoption of some such plan as the above would be a step 
in the right direction,—a step towards the attainment of that “ safe and uniform 
standard of strength and composition” which, we are told, is the main object of 
the Pharmacopoeia. 
Sheffield, June, 1867. John T. Miller. 
ABSTRACTS AND GLEANINGS FROM BRITISH AND FOREIGN 
JOURNALS IN BOTANY, MATERIA MEDICA, AND THERA¬ 
PEUTICS. 
A New Poison. 
In a paper addressed to the Academy of Sciences', and published in ‘ Comptes 
Rendus,’ Drs. Pecholier and Saint-Pierre give an account of a poisonous plant, 
called Boundou by the natives of Gaboon. It belongs to the Apocynacese, and 
is employed in Gaboon to prepare the proof liquor used in judicial duels. The 
prisoner is made to swallow a dose of it; if he dies, he is deemed guilty, and if 
he recovers, innocent. Our authors having succeeded in obtaining a few roots 
of this shrub, instituted experiments with a view to ascertain the nature of the 
poison. They had not substance enough to enable them to separate the active 
principle by chemical treatment, but were obliged to limit their experiments to 
the aqueous and alcoholic extracts, the poisonous effects of which they fried on 
rabbits, dogs, and frogs. The results obtained are as follows:—1. The Boundou 
plant contains a poisonous principle, which is soluble both in water and alcohol. 
2. This poison operates much in the same way as Nux Vomica; that is, it 
chiefly acts on the sensory nervous system. 3. Administered either by the 
stomach or by subcutaneous injection, it at first increases the frequency of 
