ON A RECENTLY PROPOSED TEST, ETC. 
499 
H. R. Oswald, dated August 24th, 1865, it is stated that these seeds are in daily 
use in the Mysore hospitals as a substitute for jalap. 
The only other testimony with which I will trouble you, and that very 
briefly, is that of Dr. George Bidie, the present Professor of Materia Medica 
at the Madras Medical College. After extensive trials with it, he states that he 
has always found the powdered seeds a very safe and efficient purgative, in its 
action very analogous to that of jalap. The great objection he sees to its em¬ 
ployment is the largeness of the dose (5i), and he proposes to substitute a resin 
which he calls u P7iarbitisin, v which, in doses varying from five to eight grains, 
he has found to act safely and efficiently as a purgative. He gives the process 
by which he obtained this, but it appears to me that it may more easily be pre¬ 
pared by the process advised for the preparation of the Resin of Jalap. 
My own experience with this drug has been limited, my supply of seeds be¬ 
ing only that obtained from plants grown in my own garden ; but I saw suffi¬ 
cient to confirm, in my own mind, the statements of O’Shaughnessy, Kirk¬ 
patrick, and Bidie which I have just detailed to you. 
It is but right that I should mention, that in a communication recently 
received from Hr. W. Bymock, of Bombay, he states that he witnessed one seed , 
taken by an adult female, produce excessive purgation. This is the only in¬ 
stance I have heard of, in which any ill effects have followed the employment of 
these seeds, and I think that I am fully justified in regarding it as an excep¬ 
tional case. 
These, gentlemen, are all the remarks I have at present to make with regard 
to this drug, which I cannot but regard as a valuable purgative. Our 1 British 
Pharmacopoeia ’ has a sufficient number of purgatives in it already, and there 
can be no object in increasing this number, but I venture to hope that you will 
agree with me in thinking that in India, where this drug is indigenous, where 
a supply is always available at an almost nominal cost, which would render the 
practioner in the East in a great measure independent of an imported article of 
the same class, it would be unwise not to award to it a high place in our 
consideration. 
Mr. Hanbury said that the establishment of the value of such a purgative 
as had been brought before them that evening by Hr. Waring was especially 
important, from the fact that the Pharbitis Nil could be grown readily in all 
tropical countries. He understood that recently a resin similar to jalap resin 
had been extracted from these seeds. 
Professor Bentley said that the evidence in favour of the value of the seeds 
-of the Pharbitis Nil , as a purgative, was so strong, and had been referred to by so 
many good pharmacologists and physicians, that he thought that there could be 
now no doubt upon this point. So far as he could judge, from the evidence 
submitted to him, it would appear that these seeds owed their purgative pro¬ 
perties to a resin resembling that of jalap resin, and that their action was similar 
to that of jalap, but the dose required to produce the same effect would be 
about double that of jalap. It was quite true that many good purgatives were 
now in use in this country, but as jalap was getting scarce, and consequently of 
high price, the seeds, the action of which had been now so fully proved by 
Hr. Waring, might prove an economical substitute, if required, for that drug. 
ON A RECENTLY PROPOSED TEST EOR ADULTERATION IN 
OTTO OF. ROSES. 
Professor Redwood communicated the results of some experiments he had 
