296 
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
With reference to the vegetable kingdom, the wines of col- 
chicum will serve to illustrate our views: the wine of the seed 
is said to possess a marked difference from that of the root, 
yet from a general inattention to this circumstance, we are 
seldom led to discriminate. 
With regard to manipulation, some physicians, with a 
proper deference to the skill of our apothecaries, direct their 
prescriptions to be put up secundum artem, while others tax 
our ingenuity to make a good preparation, in following their 
instructions. Mucilage of gum arable affords a good exemplifi- 
cation. As simple as it would appear, yet there is nothing ap- 
pertaining to pharmaceutic handiwork, that is attended with 
less success, oris so difficult to beginners, as the preparation of 
mucilage of gum arable, with the view to the suspension of 
oils, balsams, &c. It rarely happens that the proper quantity 
of gum is prescribed, and not unfrequently much more than 
necessary, which renders it as difficult to make a fine mixture 
as the employment of too little gum. Sometimes half an 
ounce of gum, and even one ounce is directed for the suspen- 
sion of four or eight drachms of copaiba in an eight ounce 
mixture, of which for a like quantity of mixture one drachm is 
sufficient, provided there be not too large a portion of spi- 
rituous preparations in the composition. 
Substances are often prescribed as vehicles for the adminis- 
tration of some active substance, which are wholly inadequate 
for the purpose — foj: instance, camphor, strychnine, and 
other vegetable alkaloids, to be made into pills with crumb of 
bread; resinous substances with gum, and extracts with essen- 
tial oils, &c. To enumerate all the inaccuracies, and to say 
why these are inappropriate, or what are proper substitutes, 
would occupy more space than the limits of this Journal 
would permit. These few observations, hastily embodied, 
are sufficient to show that our learned and respected coadjutors 
are liable to errors, and may remove from us the censure to 
which we are sometimes exposed, from the utter impossibility 
of making elegant preparations, according to ill directed pre- 
scriptions. 
