COLLOQUIA DE OMNIBUS REBUS. 
4 05 
uXibov, ffn\8ov<rocv, vvo%av6ov, or, as our own Pharmacopoeia 
has it, “ translucent, garnet-red, and almost entirely soluble in 
spirit of the strength of sherry.” It must be active. A friend, 
after merely tasting it, a little too incautiously perhaps, found 
next morning that he might as well have taken pil. al. comp, 
gr. x. If we could always get such an article,—and why not, 
if once ?—or rather, why not aloin from it, as it would be easily 
detached from the juice I— 
Physiologus. But are you sure aloin is the active, and only 
active, ingredient in aloes ? 
Obstetricus. I can speak for the activity of Smith’s aloin. I 
have for some time past given it often as a laxative, from finding 
that a grain, or even less, did all the business of the best aloetic 
pill,— tulo, cito, et jucuncle. The makers say that they have 
sold a quarter hundred weight of it. Depend upon it this sub¬ 
stance alo'in should be looked to. 
Medicus. Surely. We are no longer in a condition to main¬ 
tain, as many have done against the substitution of proximate 
principles for crude drugs, that nature is the best druggist, and 
presents medicines in the fittest state for use. My experience, 
though more limited, is to the same effect with yours as to aloin. 
Let it be fairly tried by all means. And in the mean time it is - 
a satisfaction that a discovery so interesting, and possibly so im¬ 
portant in practice, as that of aloin, should have received from 
this juice so remarkable a confirmation ; and, above all, that the 
discovery, in a very difficult branch of proximate analysis, which 
had foiled some of the ablest continental chemists, was made by 
a townsman of our own.— To Chemicus. What have you made 
of the birds I sent vou ? 
%/ 
Chemicus. What! Lord Selkirk’s pheasants? A clear case 
of Culpable Phasianicide,—of wilful 
Poisoning of Game with Arsenic. Their crops were cram¬ 
med with acidum arseniosum. 
Chirurgus. Where did this happen ? What is the story ? 
Chemicus. The gamekeeper at St. Mary’s Isle had lately 
seen, notwithstanding the healthiness of the season, a great 
many dead pheasants in the preserves ; and on some occasions 
he observed them in the act of dying, when they were kicking 
abnormally, not at all like what he had often witnessed before 
in death from— 
Editor . Lead— 
Chemicus. Or other natural causes. So, having for some 
time had reason to keep his eye on one or two worthy people in 
the village, he got his Lordship to look a little into the matter. 
VOL. XXV. 3 I 
