mynsicht’s elixir of vitriol. 
109 
Vilque, where I procured an arriero and mules to convey me to Arequipa. The suffer¬ 
ings during my six days’ journey over the lofty plains from Sandia to Vilque were very 
great; the cold was intense, the work I had with the vicious, unmanageable mules was 
a constant source of anxiety, and I had no food whatever beyond a little parched maize ; 
each day I was upwards of ten hours in the saddle. 
“ Leaving Vilque on the 24th, by forced and rapid marches over an uninhabited and 
frozen tract of country, exposed to furious gales of intensely cold wind, I reached the 
city of Arequipa on the 27th, having travelled over 350 miles of difficult country in ten 
days, having to accommodate myself to the pace of a walking Indian, and pass much of 
the time in chasing the vicious mules. 
“ At Arequipa I found the moss which enveloped the plants still damp ; but I watered 
them once or twice during iny stay there between the 28th and 30th, during which time 
the range of the thermometer day and night was between 56° and 60°. On the 31st, 
I left Arequipa and, crossing the desert, the plants were safely deposited beside the 
Wardian cases at Islay on 1st of June.” 
{To be continued.) 
MYNSICHT’S ELIXIR OF VITRIOL, 
Nobilius et efhcacius stomachicum in tota republica medica nondum invent uni 
esse, experientiam ipsam attestor.”—Hadrian a Mynsicht, Thesaurus et Arma¬ 
mentarium medico-chymicum. 
The statement of Mr. Johnson in the last number of the Pharmaceutical 
Journal* that the Elixir of Vitriol of Mynsicht is identical with the Acidum 
sulphuricum aromaticum of the Edinburgh and Dublin Pharmacopoeias, is not 
quite correct, though it is true that the latter medicine is a simplified form of 
Mynsicht’s preparation which it is doubtless intended to represent. In the 
London Pharmacopoeia of 1721, the following is the formula for 
Elixir Vitrioli Mynsicliti 
]f Cinnamomi, 
Zinziberis, 
Caryophyllorum, ana Hlj. 
Calami Aromatici sj. 
Galangae minoris ^iss. 
Foliorum Salviae, 
Menthse crispae, ana 5ss. 
Cubebarum, 
Nucis Moschatae, ana 5ij. 
Ligni Aloes, 
Corticis Citri, ana 5 j. 
Fiat pulvis. Adde 
Sacchari Candi 5iij. 
Spiritus Vini lb.iss. 
Olei Vitrioli lb.j. 
Extrahe tincturam digerendo dies viginti s.a. deinde Ultra ad usum. 
In the succeeding Pharmacopoeia, that of 1716, this preparation is replaced 
by the following : 
Elixir Vitrioli acidum 
]£> Tincturse aromaticae M. lb.j, 
Spiritus vitrioli fortis, oleidicti, P. *iv. 
Misce gradatim, et postquam faeces subsederint per chartam cola. 
® Page 70. 
VOL. V. 
K 
