ON MICROSCOPIC ANALYSIS APPLIED TO PHARMACY. 
185 
We may now proceed to indicate the points to which our attention has 
been directed in our recent experiments. Several officinal preparations pre¬ 
viously omitted have been worked out in a similar manner to those of which 
we have already furnished the results. We may instance, vin. opii, ext. 
opii liquidum, B.P., tinct. opii ammoniata, Ph. Ed., as having yielded in¬ 
teresting facts, which at a future time we hope to lay before the Conference. 
We might just caution any of our members, who are so far interested in the 
subject as to repeat our experiments, that it is necessary in making any micro¬ 
scopical observations on vinous solutions, in the first place to examine the 
extractive matter of the sherry wine he has employed, as a crystalline preci¬ 
pitate variable in quantity and character, probably consisting of bitartrato 
of potash and grape sugar, commonly presents itself upon evaporation, and 
though this does not greatly interfere with the evidences of opium crystals, 
it is necessary to be familiar with its appearance. 
With respect to the extract, opii liquid, of the new Pharmacopoeia, 
though it can scarcely be said to represent Battley’s Liquor Opii Sedativus, 
as it was probably intended that it should, it seems to be as near an approxi¬ 
mation to a satisfactory aqueous solution of opium as is compatible with sim¬ 
plicity in formula. 
We have had the opportunity, through the kindness of Dr. Liddell, late of 
the Indian army, and of Mr. Morson, of making a series of experiments on 
reliable specimens of several opiums not usually met with in commerce, with 
each of which we have adopted the same course as laid down in our former 
paper. These are Benares cultivation opium, that is, the drug as it leaves 
the hands of the growers ; Benares provision opium, that is, the drug as ap¬ 
proved by the Indian medical authorities, and accepted for hospital opium; 
Egyptian opium, and English opium. But it would be of little use offering any 
remarks on the different microscopical appearances presented by them until 
•we are prepared to illustrate our meaning by drawings. 
A third course of experiments has been made, with a view to determine the 
different solvent powers of alcohols of various strengths, of methylic alcohol, 
and of methylated spirit, with the most striking and instructive results. At 
piresent we need only say, that our observations confirm the views of medical 
men, namely, that methylated tincture of opium is a strikingly different so¬ 
lution to the officinal tincture, and it seems a question whether it ought to be 
in any case admitted even for external application. 
A fourth series of investigations has been made on what we may term syn¬ 
thetical opiums,—that is to say, upon masses of neutral extractive matter, 
with which the alkaloids existing in opium have been incorporated in similar 
proportions to those in which they exist in the crude drug, the object being 
to have a sort of artificial opium of known composition to act as a normal 
standard, with which results obtained from the various samples upon which 
we have worked might be compared. The great difficulty which we have 
had to encounter has been to obtain a perfectly neutral extractiform basis as 
a medium, and we have not yet succeeded to our satisfaction, but we still 
hope to obtain valuable corroborative evidence by this or some similar 
process. 
Such is the outline of the works we have been engaged upon in connection 
with the purely scientific portion of our subject; but it may not be consi¬ 
dered amiss in a company of practical pharmaceutists to say a few words on 
the application of the facts which have been established, especially concern¬ 
ing the points which should be held in view in preparing solutions of opium 
for medicinal use. 
For most purposes the tincture of opium of the Pharmacopoeia leaves the 
physician little to desire, inasmuch as the astringent and other constitutional 
VOL. vii. o 
