284 
OIIIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS, 
These chlorides have procured health and comfort for the 
inmates of crowded ships, and dispelled the apprehension of a 
disease among them in tropical climates, at whose approach 
the stoutest stood aghast, and reflecting on the prospect of 
death, may be imagined to have uttered, 
" Take any shape but that^ and my firm nerves 
Shall never tremble." 
The discovery and perfection of the process employed for 
producing these compounds, was the result of the skill and 
intelligence of a pharmaceutist of France, Labarraque, whose 
name has become celebrated from having been identified 
with these substances which his science and industry intro- 
duced to the notice of the medical profession, and to the 
domestic use of society at large. 
The discovery, by analysis, of the composition of vegetable 
substances, and the determining of the fact that their reme- 
dial powers resided in an active principle, capable of separation 
from the great bulk of woody fibre in which it was enveloped, 
was the result of pharmaceutic enterprise and talent. 
This discovery has opened a new branch of science for the 
labours of the present generation, and has materially changed 
the therapeutic system as form^erly established and taught. 
The system of the patient is no longer overloaded with an 
immense amount of inert matter, in order that he may receive 
the benefit to be derived from an infinitely small proportion 
of active matter associated with it. Who that has his recol- 
lections awakened of spoonfuls of nauseous dry powder, at 
which the stomach revolted, forced upon him in the shape of 
bark, can withhold from pharmacy the merit she claims of 
having separated from that same bark the beautifully crystal- 
lized element which gave it all its powers, and which was 
capable of producing in a dose " in shape no bigger than an 
agate stone," all the beneficial effects for which the bark had 
long been celebrated. In many cases it so happened that 
a vegetable provided by nature with a principle which gave 
it an ability to do good, was, at the same time, invested with 
