On the Preparation of Opium. 
129* 
formula of Rousseau, by adding to the liquid evaporated 
to the consistence of a syrup, the alcoholic fluid collected. du- 
ring the evaporation ; it is prepared according to the amended 
formula of Baume, by adding to the syrupy liquid a quan- 
tity of alcohol, equivalent to that supposed to be lost during- 
the evaporation; but also, on account of the products which 
are formed during the fermentation. Hence, it would be im- 
possible to judge of its composition a priori. This, in my 
opinion, is one of those remedies that must be scrupulously 
prepared according to the original formula, waiting till further 
researches shall reveal to us the rationale of the process and 
its results; but at the same time it ought not to be discarded, 
because on the one hand, its action has been too often veri- 
fied to permit us to doubt its efficacy, and on the other, our 
ignorance of its true composition does not permit us to use a 
substitute for it. 
Distilled water. Water distilled over opium, contains, ac- 
cording to the experiments of M. Pelletier, organic matters ; 
consequently, whatever may be the nature of these matters, 
which are as yet but imperfectly understood, and without 
prejudging the debatable question of their therapeutic im- 
portance, it may be admitted that the vehicle may give them 
a certain action on the animal economy, and that a perfect 
identity cannot exist between preparations in which no at- 
tention is paid to these volatile matters. 
At the same time, I would remark, that if some physicians 
have been in error in attributing therapeutic properties to 
certain bodies, which they do not possess, pharmaceutists on 
the other hand, have equally erred in not paying proper at- 
tention to the principles of organic bodies, and in doubting, 
the properties attributed to various substances, because their 
means of analysis have not enabled them to explain their 
effects physically or materially. Of late years, for example, 
it was denied that a certain colourless fluid, of a slightly em- 
pyreumatic odour, has the property attributed to it, of arrest- 
ing haemorrhages, because reagents have no effect upon it, • 
and because by evaporation and other means of analysis, 
nothing is found except traces of an empyreumatic substance, 
Vol L— No. 2. 17 
