Select**! ®vticlts. 
ART. XXIX.— OBSERVATIONS ON THE PREPARATIONS OF 
OPIUM. By L. R. Le Canu. 
Following the example of some pharmaceutists, who, un- 
fortunately have not had as many imitators as they merit, 
M. Soubeiran has lately made many highly interesting ob- 
servations on several pharmaceutical preparations, and espe- 
cially on those of aconite, sarsaparilla and rhatany. It must, 
however, be confessed, that the results which have been de- 
duced from the analysis of these therapeutic agents, have 
often been disputed; thus M. Caventou is of opinion that the 
experiments of Hancock, and some other foreign chemists, 
do not prove, in so incontestable a manner, the volatility, or 
at least the rapid alterability of the active principle of sarsa- 
parilla by heat, as to render it necessary to abandon the 
use of his syrup, prepared by a long decoction ; on the other 
hand, M. Polydore Boullay has judiciously observed, that if 
the analyses of Bucholz and Braconnot show that the extract 
of aconite, prepared in the usual manner, cannot be depended 
upon, the more recent researches of Geiger and Hesse, de- 
monstrate that it is an energetic remedy, since, besides the 
fugitive principle of Bucholz and Braconnot, aconite contains 
a fixed active principle, viz. aconitine. But, whatever im- 
portance may be awarded to these objections, the researches 
to which they apply are of incontestable utility. 
And although in the actual state of organic chemistry, it is 
dangerous to rely fully on the data furnished by it, and to 
rejeet, as imperfect, certain formulae which subsequent dis- 
