Home Department. 
COLLOQUIA DE OMNIBUS REBUS. 
SCENE. — A Literary Dissecting-room, with the Mangled Re¬ 
mains of Authors , in various stages of Decomposition. 
Time. — Evening . COLLOQUII PERSONAE. — Medicus, 
Chirurgus, Ohstetricus, Physiologus, Chemicus, and the 
Editor. 
Medicus. Do any of you know what that is 1 
Chirurgus. It has not a prepossessing odour. 
Medicus. A pupil this morning said it reminded him of a 
negro ball in Jamaica. 
Phisiologus. I think it rather pleasant. 
Medicus. So does Dr. Pereira. He says the odour is 
“ powerful and fragrant” [ Pharm . Journal April 1852.] 
Editor. It has a most unmistakeable smack of aloes. 
Medicus. And no wonder. It is the genuine dx/c/xa evi rv\g 
cihoyg, 
The Natural Juice of Aloes, fetid, and still fluid, as when 
fresh exuded from the plant on the shores of Araby the Blest. 
A London importer had it sent him the other day from the 
Red Sea, via Bombay, for the satisfaction of the curious; and 
Dr. Pereira has sent this sample down. You see it consists of 
a yellow granular magma, in a dark orange-coloured liquid. 
The yellow stuff is a mass of microscopic crystals of alo'in— 
indisputable alo'in—the principle discovered in Barbadoes aloes 
by Messrs. Smith, in Duke Street. 
Chirurgus. If you are sure of that, you will relieve my mind 
of a great load on the score of organic chemistry. To confess 
the truth, I have never been quite satisfied that nature, and not 
the chemist, made all that legion of vegetable proximate prin¬ 
ciples,—such, for example, as our friend Dr. Anderson was 
telling us about the other evening at the Royal Society, in his 
paper on “ Opium.” But this undoubted educt gives one some 
faith in proximate organic analysis. Are you sure it is alo'in? 
Chemicus. Quite. I looked at it this morning under the 
microscope. The appearance is splendid, and entirely that of 
Smith’s principle. There can be no doubt of that. 
Chirurgus. Tell us something more about it. 
Medicus. Mr. Smith, from whom I got the liquid, gave me 
also this bit of succus spissatus, made by him from it, which has 
all the characters of the finest socotorine aloes —xcu 
