ORGANIC MATERIA MEDICA. 
479 
Inches long, fig-shaped, firm, and heavythese we are to put into the spirit, 
to macerate for seven days without agitation, and then to strain, etc. This 
is truly a rough and ready method of making tinctures. But perhaps it may 
he said that it does not much signify, for the castor is of doubtful efficacy as 
a medicine, and for the more important tinctures there is the new and im¬ 
proved process for their preparation. Well, let us see how this is. Tincture of 
opium would surely be considered an important medicine, yet this is ordered 
to be made by the same defective method of putting the things together 
and macerating without agitation. 
TJnguenta .—My time does not admit of my saying much on the subject of 
the ointments, but I may remark that there appear to be some improvements 
in this department, although I do not think the process for preparing the lard 
which forms the basis of some of them is as good as it might have been. 
And now, gentlemen, I have come to the end, not of my subject, but, I 
suspect, of your patience. I have run hastily, as was necessary from the brief 
time allotted to the purpose, over the several classes of preparations ordered 
in the British Pharmacopoeia ; but although I have thus rapidly treated the 
subject here, I have given to it all the attention and thought I could bestow 
upon it, and which the importance of the subject demands, in preparing my¬ 
self for these lectures. The opinions I have formed in studying this work I 
have expressed here freely and without reserve, believing this to be the course 
most conducive to the interests of the profession to which I belong, and the 
body to which I am attached ; most in accordance with what would be expected 
and desired byjmu, by the medical profession, and even by the Medical Coun¬ 
cil ; and, above all, most consistent with my duty. 
ON THE ORGANIC MATERTA MEDICA OF THE BRITISH 
PHARMACOPEIA. 
Lecture II. 
Delivered before the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain , on the 23 rd of March , 1804 -. 
BY ROBERT BENTLEY, M.R.C.S. ENG., F.L.S., HONORARY FELLOW OF KING’S 
COLLEGE, LONDON, 
PROFESSOR OF MATERIA MEDICA AND BOTANY TO THE PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY OR 
GREAT BRITAIN; PROFESSOR OF BOTANY IN KING’S COLLEGE, LONDON, 
AND IN THE LONDON INSTITUTION. 
I commenced the lecture which I had the honour of delivering in this In¬ 
stitution in February, by describing the object and design of the present 
Course ; and then proceeded to show the increased importance given to the 
Materia Medica in the British Pharmacopoeia over the corresponding portion of 
any previous Pharmacopoeia published in the United Kingdom, which we re¬ 
garded as a great advance and improvement. We then gave a general sketch 
of the changes which the Organic Materia Medica of the British Pharmacopoeia 
presented when compared with that of the last editions of the London, Edin¬ 
burgh, and Dublin Pharmacopoeias, and more especially with that of the London, 
and made some suggestions for its further alteration and improvement; and, 
lastly, we reviewed in order, those articles of the Materia Medica which ap¬ 
peared to require them, dwelling more particularly upon those that were alto¬ 
gether new to a Pharmacopoeia hitherto published in this country, or which were 
at least new to the limits formerly comprised by the London Pharmacopoeia. 
Our lecture to-day will be devoted to the examination, explanation, and de¬ 
scription of the remaining articles of the Organic Materia Medica in the order 
2 K" 2 
IV. mJ 
