838 
ORIGINAL AND EXTRACTED ARTICLES. 
ON THE COMPOSITION OP CHLORODYNE. 
BY THOMAS STRETCH DOWSE, M.D. 
It appears to me very unfortunate that the endeavours of gentlemen to 
elucidate the much-vexed question as to the composition of chlorodyne cannot 
be carried on through the medium of your Journal without giving rise to feel¬ 
ings so totally foreign to the subject. The displays of rhetoric by “ A Pro¬ 
vincial ” are worthy of a different, if not a better cause. But I fear they will 
in no way tend to approximate and elaborate the evidence so kindly rendered 
by himself and others towards the solution of this controversy, and I do not 
think the remark uncalled for when I say that if this subject, which appears to 
be of some interest in a medical and chemical point of view, is to be associated 
with such feelings as were evinced in the letter of your last number, the sooner 
the discussion ends the better. It is not by such means that we shall be able in 
any way to arrive at a definite result; and, after a careful survey of the corre¬ 
spondence which has been kindly permitted to occupy the pages of the ‘ Phar¬ 
maceutical Journal,’ I am sorry to say, quite contrary though it be to the 
opinion of one of your correspondents, that the composition of Dr. Brown’s 
chlorodyne is by no means cleared up. At the same time, before proceeding 
further, I must state that every respect and consideration ought to be paid to 
the careful chemical investigation of Mr. Smith, which I consider, of all others, 
the most to be relied upon. Facta non Yerba versus Yerba non Facta ; and, 
in making this remark upon Mr. Smith’s formula, I do so upon the grounds 
that his analysis was carefully and skilfully conducted, and that his formula is 
based upon such investigation, that is, by the result of actual experiment, 
meaning by this priina facie evidence. Although I credit this able analyst 
with using his best powers to arrive at the chemical composition of Dr. Browne’s 
chlorodyne,—and doubtless he is absolutely correct as far as his analysis goes, 
—yet I feel persuaded there is something more in it which Mr. Smith has failed 
to detect, and I believe this to be belladonna. Mr. Smith frankly, and without 
reservation, admits that the positive detection and isolation of the alkaloids in 
complex organic mixtures is not always a very easy task, more especially when 
they exist in small proportions. And again, Mr. Smith states “ all my attempts 
to obtain the evidence of atropia failed.” Here, then, we have both positive 
and negative evidence. No one can doubt from his own assertion the inability 
of even a scientific analyst like Mr. Smith to discover the small traces of 
atropine which exist in a complex organic mixture like chlorodyne. How fre¬ 
quently has it been the case, in times past, that the analyst has been unable to 
discover the presence of strychnine in organic mixtures, wheh the physiologist has 
come forward, and rendered its existence indisputable by the tetanic action pro¬ 
duced upon the frog! and the mere fact of the chemist being unable to detect 
atropine in chlorodyne does not for one moment destroy my belief in its pre¬ 
sence, as I maintain that I have proved physiologically, beyond doubt, that 
belladonna is present. At all events, if I have not proved satisfactorily that 
belladonna does exist,.there ought not to be a doubt in the minds of any accu¬ 
rate observer of the action of the alkaloids upon the nervous system but that 
chlorodyne eyen does contain a something, which modifies and changes the cha¬ 
racteristic action of morphia which every one admits to exist in this compound, 
and which some believe to be its only active narcotic agent. As in my last 
letter I appeared to base my belief in the presence of belladonna principally 
from the effects observed in the case of poisoning there narrated, I will in this 
