190 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[September 2,1871 
Great Britain, it seemed to me that further attention 
should he paid by qualified men to a medicine which has 
a certain repute in several parts of Europe for curing - 
the bites of mad animals. Dr. Grisanowski, of this city, ; 
kindly informed me of its use in Russia and France, and 
has supplied me with information on the subject. It 
appears that about thirteen or fourteen years ago a 
certain Nikititsch LevachofF, of Peklitz (Government of 
Riazan, Russia), created a sensation by his cure of hy¬ 
drophobia. His arcanum was supposed to he the Cetonia 
aurata , or rose beetle. The monks of Phaneromenos, 
near Eleusis, Greece, use the insect Mylabris bimaculata , 
with equal parts of the leaves of Cynanchum excelsum , in 
doses of 15 grains of the mixed powder; at the same 
jtime they cauterize the wound w r ith boiling oil. The 
physician of the late King - Otho, of Greece, often gave 
half-grain doses of cantharides, until symptoms of inci¬ 
pient gastro-enteritis declared themselves. Here in 
Tuscany there are one or two persons who arc reputed 
to be able to treat successfully the bites of mad animals 
by means of a nostrum whoso basis is supposed to be 
cantharides, or other insects with blistering properties; 
and it appears that their efforts are not unavailing, inas¬ 
much as a medical man, to my knowledge, was convinced 
of the efficacy of the remedy, and caused a number of 
bottles to be prepared by one possessing the secret, and 
forwarded them, with a memoii - , to the Academy of Me¬ 
dicine at Paris. As the box containing the remedy must 
have arrived at its destination but a short time before 
the breaking out of the recent war, it is probable that 
the whole matter has been set aside and forgotten. 
{Speaking of the remedy to the physician, I suggested to 
him that it contained cantharides, to which he assented, 
or supposed that at least some blistering fly entered into 
the composition; and it then occurred to me that I had 
once copied an ancient recipe for hydrophobia, and that 
out of curiosity I had retained a copy for myself. Proba¬ 
bly the two compounds are identical. The formula in my 
possession was represented as a secret left by S. Pe nn ine 
to the family of Boccaccio, and is represented by the 
following translation:— 
. ■Secret for Curing the Bites of Had Bogs. 
Take of cloves, grains 54 
cinnamon, grains 54 
pepper, 1 drachm and grains 36 
cantharides, grains 27. Mix. 
Dose according to age:— 
From 25 years and upwards, grains 26 
For 12 years, grains 19 
10 years, grains 14 
4 years, grains 6| 
2 years, grains 3J 
It may be taken from the day of the bite up to twenty- 
five days after. The remedy must not be administered 
to pregnant women. It is to be taken in one dose ac¬ 
cording - to age, as marked above, in wine, broth or water, 
according to the taste of the sick person. It must be 
administered fasting, and the patient should not eat any¬ 
thing for at least four hours, and during this time should 
take a groat deal of exercise, in order that the remedy 
should act the more. The patient will suffer strong 
pains in the head and kidneys, besides other inconveni¬ 
ences ; even to the passing of bloody urine, should the 
dog have been really mad, and the blood have commenced 
to be contaminated. If at the height of the pain the 
patient w'ould like to drink a glass of Nocera or Let- 
tuccio water, it wall serve him as a relief. 
Remarks .—Tuscan grains have the value of 5 centi¬ 
grams ; consequently are less than the grain employed 
in Great Britain, Germany, etc. Nocera water is de¬ 
rived from a source in the Central Apennines, and Let- 
tuccio water is the produce of one of the springs at 
Montecaline in Tuscany. It has laxative properties, and 
is less nauseous than many other purgative waters. 
The Cantharis resicatoria is found in several parts of 
Tuscany, its chief source being the Yal di Chiana, where 
the peasants collect it by spreading cloths under the 
trees morning and evening, and shaking the insect out 
of the branches. The months of May and June are 
those in which the gathering takes place, and the fly 
prefers the Olive-tree to the Poplar and Ash, w r hich they 
also frequent. They are killed by being plunged into 
weak vinegar, or by being - held over the steam of the 
same. Afterwards they are dried as rapidly as possible 
in the sun, and are frequently turned over by a thickly 
gloved hand, or by other means. 
The Chairman said that if he were bitten by a mad 
dog, he would not like to trust to the remedy here pro¬ 
posed. 
Dr. Attfield read a paper on— 
Solutions. 
BY T. B. GROVES, F.C.S. 
A short discussion that ensued on the reading, before- 
the Pharmaceutical Conference at Liverpool, of Mr. 
Rimmington’s paper on “The Specific Gravity and 
the Actual Weight of Certain Volume Measures of 
Various Liquid Preparations,” set me inquiring on the 
subject of the volume occupied by salts when dissolved 
in water. 
The statement credited to the President by the reporter 
of the Pharmaceutical Journal is to this effect, “ That 
the contents per oz. were coincident with the specific 
gravity; for instance, lemon-juice having a sp. gr. T040- 
would contain 40 grs. of citric acid per oz., and so on,, 
except in such cases as alum and sulphate of soda, w'here 
there is much water of crystallization. In those cases it 
would be half, or 20 grs. per oz.” 
Mr. Reynolds followed with the remark, that the same- 
rule applied to sugar in diabetic urine, but properly 
qualified the assertion by the phrase “ roughly speaking.”' 
In the cases of both lemon-juice and urine, the estima¬ 
tion by that method must necessarily be exceedingly 
rough, as the variations in the proportions of other con¬ 
stituents affecting the specific gravity of the fluids are 
left out of the question entirely. 
Although I have no new' experiments to offer, I shall,. 
I think, be doing some service, if I recapitulate shortly 
the facts I have ascertained in the course of my recent 
reading on this subject. It will, at least, serve to caution 
some W'ho otherwise would be inclined to place too im¬ 
plicit reliance on the “rough methods,” already referred, 
to. 
Dalton, during the latter part of his life, occupied 
himself with the question of solution, and derived from 
his experiments this supposed law, “ that when a body 
dissolves, it will only increase the volume of the solvent 
in proportion to the water of crystallization it contains.” 
His method of research involved the use of tw'o measuring- 
vessels, and pouring backwards and forwards, in fact, 
w r as quite incapable of giving accurate results. 
This, as well as the want of general applicability of 
his laws, was pointed out by Hilton, w-hose volumeno¬ 
meter, consisting of a glass flask with a long, narrow, 
graduated neck, enabled the experimenter to approach 
more nearly to accuracy of determination. He found 
that whilst the theory approached correctness in the- 
cases of desiccated sulphate of magnesia and carbonate- 
of soda, it completely broke dow-n in the cases of the- 
naturally anhydrous salts, nitrate of potash, sulphate of 
potash, etc. 
AValker found, to his astonishment, sometimes an ex¬ 
pansion, sometimes a contraction of the w r hole volume of 
salt and w r ater, according to the nature of the salt em¬ 
ployed, and the strength and temperature of the solution. 
However, he does not appear to have commenced with 
very clear notions, for after repeatedly employing the 
terms “bulk” and “volume,” he goes on to say, “I. 
