September 14, 1872.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
211 
Mr. H anbury : The suggestion just made is well 
worthy of attention. The same idea occurred to me. 
I fully intended to provide Professor Fliickiger with 
specimens of some of these plants grown in Eng¬ 
land. I will do so, in order that a comparative 
examination may he made. It seems exceedingly 
probable that the soil has something to do with the 
matter. On the other hand, we must observe this 
striking fact, that here we have cardamoms from Malabar, 
and grains of paradise from West Africa, and ginger 
from the West Indies, and they all seem to have picked 
up manganese somehow. Whether plants raised from 
seed and grown in an English hothouse would likewise 
yield the metal, is a point to be looked at. 
Mr. Stoddart : I may call to the recollection of those 
who met me at Liverpool that I mentioned a circum¬ 
stance corroborating Mr. Ekin’s observations. At the 
top of a hill near Bristol I found the presence of stron¬ 
tium in all the plants by means of a spectroscope.. That 
is far easier than any other method of detecting it. It 
is, however, an astonishing fact, that you find strontium 
in the plant when growing on the celestine beds of the 
new red marls, but not elsewhere. 
Mr. T. B. Groves : I believe the same experi¬ 
ments were made on an extensive scale by Dr. Dau- 
benv, of Oxford, but Dr. Fliickiger . does not ap¬ 
pear to be aware of them. He cultivated a con¬ 
siderable quantity of garden, and watered the plants with 
various saline solutions, and observed whether the saline 
matter was taken up or not. The occurrence of man¬ 
ganese in plants does not seem to have much importance 
at the first blush, but perhaps it has something to do 
with the health of plants, and it has struck me that 
the occurrence of hop disease might be owing to a defi¬ 
ciency of manganese where the plant is cultivated. 
Mr. Sutton : Dr. Daubeny’s paper is a very valuable 
one. It was published in the Transactions of the Che¬ 
mical Society. I think that if Mr. Hanbury would 
take the trouble to send Dr. Fliickiger a copy of that 
journal, he would feel very much interested in it, because 
it bears a great deal upon the matter in question. 
The President : I think the suggestions which have 
been made will prove very valuable every way. I 
confess that very much the same line of thought oc¬ 
curred to me whilst the paper was being read. Dr. 
Fliickiger, however, does not commit himself to limiting 
manganese to a certain natural order. He speaks very 
guardedly throughout. There are certain water plants 
which he names in connection with the subject as con¬ 
taining manganese. My impression is that, of course, 
the manganese is derived from the ground, or it could 
not appear in the plants. But the question is whether 
certain plants will grow on ground where there is no 
manganese. 
Note on Succus Scapi Taraxaci. 
BY MR. HENRY BARTON, BRIGHTON. 
Dissatisfied with the variable character of the usual 
preparations of dandelion, in 1862 I collected some 
flower stalks with the flower in full bloom, and expressed 
from them the juice. Gratified with the appearance, 
taste and effect, the next year the experiment was re¬ 
sumed, rejecting the flowers and crushing only the stalks. 
Our notes for 1863 may be thus condensed: —From 
75 lb. 12 oz. flowering stalks as gathered, 12 lb. 
6 oz. flower heads were picked off and rejected; and j 
allowing about 1| lb. for drying and waste, from the 
remaining 62 lb. stalks by crushing and pressure were 
obtained 31 lb. 8 oz. of juice, to which we added 
25 per cent, by measure of spirit, and stored in glass 
bottles ; after some weeks it was filtered from the very 
small deposit, the resulting liquor remaining bright and 
retaining its characteristic taste. 1 
From that time to this we have operated in much the 
same way, with the exception that on one occasion we 
added the spirit to the crushed pulp, and allowed it to 
remain 24 hours before submitting it to pressure ; in the 
resulting liquor there was no appreciable difference from 
the former preparation either in odour, taste or colour. 
Our note for the present year gives similar results : from 
237 lb. of the stalks were obtained 123 lb. 4 oz. of 
the juice, also from 63 lb. flower heads we pressed 24 lb. 
3 oz.; this latter we consider inferior and have kept it 
separate. 
The yield would be greater if the plant came in direct 
from the collectors’ hands; as it is, they gather it one 
day and forward it by carrier the next. 
The stalk juice is not so rich in solid constituents as 
is that from the root; but if I may be permitted to quote 
Professor Bentley, who, when speaking of the juice from 
the latter collected in the summer months, remarked 
that “its value as a medicine most certainly did not de¬ 
pend solely upon the amount of solid constituents it con¬ 
tained, but principally, if not entirely, upon the presence 
of a bitter principle, which had been termed taraxacino. 
One of the best evidences therefore of the value of taraxa¬ 
cum and its fitness for medicinal use would be its taste, 
etc.” If then we may be allowed to admit taste as one 
of the evidences of value, it will certainly be favourable 
to stalk juice, and judging from the frequent remarks of 
our friends in the medical profession and others whe 
have taken it, I have reason to believe that, if not the 
best, it is certainly one of the best, most uniform and 
readily obtainable preparations of taraxacum, and one 
that can be kept for almost an indefinite period without 
changing. 
I will only now remark that if required in quantity, 
there would be little difficulty in meeting the demand: 
we once gave carte blanche to our collectors, the 
children of a parish some miles hence, and they sent in 
in three days 1258 lb. How much they would have sent 
it is difficult to say, as we were compelled from an acci¬ 
dent to our press to countermand the order. At first we 
were at a loss as to the best means of effectively breaking 
up the stalk, the pestle and mortar process being inef¬ 
fectual and tedious, but upon trial found a Kent’a 
mincer, set in the direction for cutting coarse, answer 
admirably, feeding our press as readily and rapidly as 
could be desired ; indeed so well does it bruise and divide 
succulent roots, leaves, stems, etc., that I can recom¬ 
mend our friends to give it a trial under similar circum¬ 
stances. 
Mr. Deane : I have been in the habit for many years 
of preparing the juice of the flowers of taraxacum, and 
it has proved a very useful preparation, and very uni¬ 
form in character. I have generally succeeded in ob¬ 
taining the flowers overnight, and working them the 
next morning, crushing them through rollers. I think 
Mr. Squire many years ago first drew attention to a 
preparation of the kind. I think some particulars 
about it will be found in one of the early volumes of 
the Transactions of the Pharmaceutical Society. 
Whether he continues to make it at the present time I 
do not know. It is tolerably certain that it is not so 
bitter as the preparation from the root, but it is more uni¬ 
form. It is by no means made out, however, whether 
the active principle of taraxacum depends on the bitter¬ 
ness or not. 
Mr. Giles : Taraxacum is an article in the Materia 
Medica which has interested me very much, and cer¬ 
tainly we do find a very considerable want of uniformity 
in the succus taraxaci, which I think arises from the 
very large latitude given in the Pharmacopoeia for col¬ 
lecting it. It says October to March. That covers 
too large a period. Mr. Deane, with that accuracy of 
observation which always characterizes every remark 
he makes, has referred to the greater uniformity of the; 
flowers. The reason appears to me to be that the 
