276 
NEW  PROCESS  FOR  PURE  RESIN  OF  SCAMMONY. 
The  first  few  were  made  with  a  small  specimen  sent  me  three 
years  ago,  and  in  a  note  written  at  that  time  to  Dr.  Williamson, 
the  conclusions  I  arrived  at  are  thus  summed  up: — » 1  have 
made  trial  of  your  scammony  as  far  as  the  small  specimen  sent 
me  allowed,  and  have  found  it  much  stronger  than  the  ordinary 
scammony  of  the  hospital,  which,  perhaps,  may  be  regarded  as 
,of  average  quality.  Ten  grains  of  the  latter  produced  in  one 
patient  no  effect,  whereas  the  same  amount  of  yours  caused  a 
free  action  of  the  bowels  ;  the  patient  was  subject  to  constipa- 
tion. In  other  cases  four  grains  acted  moderately.  To  ascer- 
tain, however,  the  real  value  of  the  drug  requires  much  more 
experience  in  its  effect  than  the  amount  in  my  possession  enabled 
me  to  obtain." 
After  this  time,  in  1857,  I  made  the  following  trials  ;  but, 
prior  to  giving  the  results,  I  should  remark  that  some  caution  is 
necessary  in  drawing  conclusions,  not  only  upon  the  action  of 
this,  but  of  all  other  purgatives,  as  much  depends  upon  the 
peculiarity  of  the  individual  to  whom  they  are  administered  and 
the  condition  of  the  patient  at  the  time,  and  from  the  results  of 
one  or  even  more  observations  the  deductions  cannot  be  depended 
upon.  To  avoid  these  sources  of  error,  I  have  always,  when 
practicable,  administered  the  different  kinds  of  scammony  to  the 
same  patient,  and  also  frequently  alternated  their  employment. 
At  first,  the  new  scammony  was  tested  with  that  obtained  from 
Messrs.  Bell  and  Co.,  and  each  was  given  in  the  form  of  pills 
made  with  the  simple  drug  ;  the  details  of  the  effects  are  given 
in  Table  1,  Appendix.* 
It  will  be  observed  that  twenty-five  trials  were  made,  fifteen 
with  the  new  scammony,  and  ten  with  Messrs.  Bell's,  and  the 
results  are,  if  anything,  in  favor  of  the  new  scammony  being 
somewhat  the  stronger  of  the  two ;  most  of  the  observations 
are  comparative,  or  made  with  the  same  doses  and  upon  the 
same  patients,  but  some  few  were  made  on  single  cases. 
The  next  results  were  obtained  also  in  1857  from  the  new 
*[The  tables  referred  to  in  this  paper  have  been  omitted  because  of  their 
great  length,  and  because  they  are  less  interesting  to  the  apothecary  than 
to  the  physician. — Ed.  Am.  Jour.  Pharm.] 
* 
