THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
SECOND SERIES. 
VOL. VII.—No. V.—NOVEMBER 1st, 1865. 
EXCISE INTERFERENCE WITH THE SALE OF QUININE 
WINE, 
We have received several communications from different parts of the country, 
relating to the interference of the Excise with the sale of quinine wine. Para¬ 
graphs have recently appeared in some of the newspapers and journals on this 
subject, and many of our readers are no doubt aware that the Excise officers 
have again objected to the sale of quinine wine by those who do not possess 
a wine license. This interference has probably arisen from the means 
adopted for promoting the sale of the article, which has been extensively 
advertised at railway stations, and otherwise, throughout the country. Many a 
traveller has no doubt asked himself the question, “What is Waters’s quinine 
wine ? ” and finding it sold by dealers in British wines, as well as by chemists, 
it might naturally be doubted whether it were most a medicine, a condiment, 
or an article of diet. If the basis be wine, tiie sale of which involves the neces¬ 
sity for a license, and the specific name be only intended to imply that it pos¬ 
sesses tonic properties, which, however, do not prevent its being used as an 
ordinary wine, it might be considered a fit subject for investigation by the 
vigilant guardians of the public revenue, when they find it sold by chemists 
who have no wine license. It would, no doubt, be said in justification by these 
latter, that it is a medicine, as its name clearly indicates ; and if it can be 
shown that it contains the bitter alkaloid quinine in appreciable quantities, so 
as to preclude its use for other than medicinal purposes, it might be thought 
the question would soon and easily be settled. We believe that it can be and 
has been shown, that the quinine wine of Mr. Waters and other makers, is bond 
fide what the name indicates, a solution of quinine, in which wine is used as the 
menstruum,—that, in fact, it is a solution of sulphate of quinine in orange wine, 
the quinine being present in sufficient quantity to render it strongly bitter. 
This being so, it is clearly as much a medicine as others of the medicinal wines, 
respecting which no question has arisen. But then it is sold, and we believe 
principally sold, by dealers in British wines rather than by dealers in medicine. 
In fact, the question that has recently been raised has applied to Waters’s qui¬ 
nine wine, which is almost exclusively sold by grocers and other dealers in Bri¬ 
tish wines. Mr. Waters is a wholesale agent, who supplies British wines to the 
trade, and by whom, it appears, the manufacture of quinine wine, made by dis¬ 
solving sulphate of quinine in orange wine, was undertaken in consequence of 
his having used some of his own orange wine as a menstruum to administer 
quinine to his wife. This was found to be so good and agreeable a mode of 
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