THE COLLEGE VETERINARY PHARMACOPOEIA. 505 
This is an alteration, but I think not an improvement of the 
recipe followed when I was at the college. The diuretic ball 
was then composed of yellow resin and soft soap—objectionable 
enough, because it was often difficult to give it the requisite con- 
sistence, and because the resin and the soft soap combined 
together formed still a soap which was decomposed by the 
weakest acids,— which in every stomach that deviated in the 
.slightest degree from the standard of health would be decom¬ 
posed, and a caustic alkali liberated, the effect of which might 
be most injurious. The old ball was objectionable, but here we 
have the strangest hodge-podge that ever was mingled together, 
and beating the aegyptiacum out and out. First we have the 
resin, a very good diuretic, preferable, perhaps, to the common 
turpentine. Next comes the hard soap, used, perhaps, to give 
consistence to the ball;—the form in which soap should be used, 
j.f it is ever used internally ; and being a combination of fatty 
matter and soda , united together as powerfully as such bodies can 
be, yet decomposed by a very weak acid. The hard soap and 
the resin triturated together form still a soap, but the chemical 
union is not so strong—the same quantity of alkali combining 
with a quantity of resin, as well as with the oily matter. Some 
of the common soaps are formed principally of resin and an 
alkaline ley. 
Next follows the nitre, also a mild diuretic, and a febrifuge or 
cooling medicine as well. It is that which should not be left out 
in any diuretic ball if it can be fairly combined with the other 
ingredients, and which may here be combined without probable 
decomposition. Last of all comes the soft soap, the union of fatty 
matter with potash , and united to it by a weaker affinity than to 
the soda. I am far from certain, that in the mere mixture of 
these there may not be considerable decomposition ; that some of 
the soda or the potash may not be liberated, for the fatty matter 
of the soap has a stronger affinity for one than the other; and sure 
I am, that if the slightest acidity be found in the stomach, or, if* 
it were possible, the slightest alkali either, there would be de¬ 
composition with a vengeance. 
Suppose that, by way of illustration, I wished to try the effect 
of lime as an escharotic. The farrier is much belied if it be not 
often his favourite abominable aoent in the treatment of cankered 
feet. For the sake of convenience I mix this lime with soft soap, 
and wdiat is the consequence ? I form a harmless soap of lime, 
and I liberate the potash, the most horrible of all caustics, and, 
instead of producing yesication, I literally burn up and destroy 
the integument. The effect, however, is not produced by the 
vol. iv. 3 z 
