ON  SUPPOSITORIES. 
53 
ON  SUPPOSITORIES. 
By  Charles  L.  Eberlb. 
Query  30th. — Is  there  a  rapid  method  for  making  suppositories  where- 
by the  use  of  a  hardening  ingredient  in  connection  with  cacao  butter 
will  not  be  required  ? 
When  suppositories  were  first  re-introduced,  and  became  popu- 
lar with  the  medical  profession  of  the  day,  it  was  more  or  less 
diflScult  to  procure  at  all  times  a  good  sample  of  cacao  butter, 
and  so  much  of  that  furnished  by  the  jobber  was  adulterated 
with  fats  having  a  lower  fusing  point  than  its  ordinary  applica- 
tion suggested,  and  required  uniformly  the  use  of  a  hardening 
ingredient  when  suppositories  were  to  be  prepared. 
•The  best  samples,  however,  now  furnished  for  pharmaceutical 
use  are  not  open  to  this  objection,  and  in  our  hottest  summer 
months  can  be  handled  with  impunity,  remaining  firm  and  dense 
under  the  necessary  manipulation. 
No  other  substance  or  combination  can  well  be  substituted  for 
it  in  this  peculiar  application  of  medicine,  or  at  least  none  has 
yet  been  introduced  claiming  to  supercede  it. 
The  peculiar  opinions  of  different  pharmacists  regarding  the 
amount  of  hardening  ingredient  necessary  to  be  added  to  cacao 
butter  varying  with  the  individual,  I  have  not  found  two  to  ac- 
cord perfectly. 
While  Mr.  Markoe,  in  the  climate  of  Boston,  uses  a  proportion 
of  one- third  spermaceti,  Mr.  J.  B.  Moore,  of  Philadelphia  latitude, 
whose  paper  in  the  May  Journal  of  Pharmacy  is  the  most  valu- 
able yet  contributed  on  this  subject  in  its  practical  application, 
(and  whose  samples  on  exhibition  at  this  meeting  are  perfect 
specimens  of  art,)  makes  no  admixture  from  October  to  June, 
thereafter  adding  a  small  portion  of  Japan  wax. 
The  supposed  effect  of  these  small  additions  has  been  much 
over-estimated  ;  no  appreciable  amount  of  time  in  hasty  prepara- 
tion is  gained  by  the  combination  of  wax  until  one-fifth  is  added, 
neither  with  paraflSne,  spermaceti  or  the  Japan  vegetable  wax. 
Cacao  butter,  at  ordinary  temperatures  after  a  time,  sets  in 
the  mould  and  may  be  removed  by  its  own  gravity  ;  the  admix- 
ture often  aggregates  in  a  few  days  to  a  condition  requiring 
more  than  animal  heat  for  its  fusion,  and  have  been  complained 
