156 
SYRTTPUS CODETiE. 
attempts have been made to give it a position in the shape of codeine lozenges 
by Messrs. T. and H. Smith, pate and sirop de codeine by M. Berthe, of Paris ; 
and, in addition, I have had prescriptions in which syrupus codeise was the 
chief, and indeed only ingredient, but without any intimation as to strength 
or individual preparation. Now in these railway times it is obvious that whilst 
a customer is waiting and expects to leave London by a certain train, the dis¬ 
penser cannot rush off to the prescriber, granted that his initials are known^ 
to inquire what strength or whose preparation is intended. Some of the diffi¬ 
culty might be avoided by simply stating the strength, as thus—p> Syrupi Co- 
deise (gr. i, ii, or iv, to ^j) 3 iij. This plan I have known adopted in other 
things, to wit solutions of the sulphate and acetate of strychnia, long before the 
introduction of the present liquor in the P. B. A.fter all, this does not equal an 
authorized or generally recognized form, and for this syrup of codeia I have been 
unable to find any two forms corresponding exactly in point of strength. The 
late Dr. Pereira, in his valuable work upon ‘ Materia Medica,’ gives the following 
form :—Codeia, 24 grains ; distilled water, 4 ounces ; sugar, 8 ounces : dissolve 
the codeia in the water, with the aid of heat if required, and add thereto the 
sugar. He supplements it with the observation that it is given in hooping- 
cough, and a child of seven years of age may take a teaspoonful for a dose. 
Beasley directs :—Codeia, 20 grains ; water 4 fluid ounces; sugar, 8 ounces. 
And later still, Mr. Squire, in his ‘ Companion to the Pharmacopceia,’ gives the 
following :—Codeia, 6 grains ; water, ^ an ounce ; syrup, 8 ounces: triturate 
the codeia with the water, add the syrup, and heat until solution takes place. 
Now it will be perceived at once that in neither of these forms is the codeia in a 
quantity convenient for rapid calculation as to dose. Pereira’s form has about 
2 f grains to the fluid ounce, Beasley 2|-, and Squire grains to the ounce. 
For three or four years past I have prepared and constantly used when required 
a syrup which contains exactly 2 grains of codeia to the fluid ounce ; this is 
readily calculated, and for that reason, in my opinion, preferable to the others. 
Should it not be thought desirable to authorize such a syrup by its introduction 
into the Pharmacoj)oeia, it may be well to know what others are doing. 
More recent writers upon IMateria Medica, namely Drs. Farre, Garrod, and 
Boyle, although mentioning codeia amongst the products from opium, give no 
form for a syrup. Possibly they may not think its action sufficiently marked 
to warrant a preparation of it 5 but as others evidently consider it worth a trial, 
the perplexed dispenser would rejoice at finding a way out of the difficulty. 
Magendie, writing in 1835, three years after Bobiquet’s discovery of codeine, 
as he named it, says the injection of a grain of codeine into the jugular vein of 
a middle-sized dog caused almost instantaneously a deep sleep, which however 
was easily interrupted, again to be renewed and to be continued for several 
hours, after which the animal was perfectly well. But on making the same ex¬ 
periment with the hydrochlorate of codeine, the animal, after sleeping five or 
six hours, died. A whole year’s experience, he continues, of its use has shown 
me that a single grain, given in two doses, in general produces a calm sleep, not 
succeeded, as is often the case with morphia, by lassitude and heaviness of the 
head. I have reason to think that a grain of codeine is equivalent in action to half 
a grain of pure morphia ; two grains of codeine cause nausea, and even one cannot 
be long continued in with convenience. The hydrochlorate I have found more 
active than simple codeine. Two grains induce vertigo, nausea, and vomiting ; 
but I have found most obstinate facial and ischiatic neuralgia yield to it when all 
else had been tried; being less active than morphia, it should precede it as a re¬ 
medy. 
Independently of what may be considered in some sort the uncertainty of the 
action of codeia as compared with morphia, the small ratio in which it is pro¬ 
duced, and its greater cost, will always militate against its general employment f 
