476 
LECTURES ON THE BRITISH PHARMACOPOEIA. 
for this has kept without separation even up to the present time, while the 
Dublin liniment soon changed, and has undergone complete separation. 
Mellita .—Under this head I have only to remark the omission of oxymel 
of squills, but this old and much used remedy, although turned out of the 
Pharmacopoeia, is not likely to be turned out of use by the public, or even by 
medical men. 
I pass over misturae, mucilagines, pilulae, and pulveres, as they present no 
very tempting subjects for remark, and I shall find more interesting topics 
among other preparations that follow. 
/S 'piritus .—The whole class of spirits are entirely changed. Spiritus eetheris 
is certainly a great improvement upon spiritus setheris compositus, the old 
Hoffman’s anodyne, which, although it has been in the London Pharmacopoeia 
since 1788, has rarely, if ever, been what it was intended or understood to be, 
in consequence of the difficulty of getting the true oil of wine. The new 
Spiritus JEtheris Nitrosi is no improvement upon its predecessor, but the new 
spirit of sal volatile is a great improvement upon that previously ordered, and 
this is now a preparation that will not only satisfy the requirements of the 
highest medical authority, but will at the same time satisfy the public,—and 
we could not say so of its predecessor. Spirit of horseradish remains as it 
was ; spirit of camphor is rather weaker than it was ; and spirit of chloroform 
is new to the Pharmacopoeia, although it has long been used under the name 
of chloric ether. All the rest of the spirits, with the exception of proof spirit, 
may be said to be new to us. They are all solutions of essential oils in recti¬ 
fied spirit, in the proportion of one to nine. They correspond with what we 
have been accustomed to call essences, and differ entirely from the prepara¬ 
tions hitherto used in medicine under the same names. Thus spirit of juniper 
is ninety-five times stronger than that of the London Pharmacopoeia, spirit oj 
peppermint is forty-seven times stronger, and spirit of rosemary is thirty-one 
times stronger. The last of these is directed to be made with English oil of 
rosemary, which cannot be got, for rosemary is not cultivated to a sufficient 
extent in this country to supply it. Foreign oil of rosemary is said to be 
largely adulterated with oil of turpentine, or if not, it has a very turpentiny 
odour ; so that between the impossibility of getting the English oil and “the 
difficulty of getting good foreign oil, spirit of rosemary is likely to be at a 
premium. I disapprove of most of these spirits, and think the changes made 
are very much for the worse. 
Some of the old pharmaceutical spirits may be compared to our distilled 
waters. They were formerly made b^y distillation, and usually from herbs 
or flowers. Thus the process for spirit of rosemary as we formerly had it was 
a very old one, and the product has been much approved. This was the cele¬ 
brated Hungary water, the recipe for which is said to be preserved in the Im¬ 
perial Library at Vienna, accompanied by a certificate in the handwriting of 
Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary, written in the year 1235. The recipe is as 
follows :—“ Take of aqua vitae, four times distilled, three parts ; rosemary tops 
and flowers, two parts ; put these together in a close vessel, let them stand in 
a gentle heat for fifty hours, and then distil them.” 
Of this the Queen of Hungary says, “ Being very infirm, and much troubled 
with the gout, in the seventy-second year of my age, I used for a year this 
receipt, given me by an ancient hermit, whom I never saw before nor since; 
and was not only cured, but recovered my strength, and appeared to all so 
remarkably beautiful, that the King of Poland asked me in marriage, he being 
a widower and I a widow. I, however, refused him for the love of my Lord 
Jesus Christ, from one of whose angels I believe I received the remedy.” 
How, whatever we may think of this account of the virtues of Hungary 
water, I should certainly prefer the product to which it refers to the spirit of 
