376 
ON  INFUSIONS. 
those  who  may  be  casually  called  upon  by  the  collector  to  exam- 
ine such  things,  could  be  put  upon  their  guard  and  induced  to 
scrutinize  closely  all  opium  coming  from  that  quarter.  That 
such  things  have  been  done,  I  know  from  my  own  experience  in 
one  case,  occurring  several  years  since,  when  a  quantity  of  Pe- 
ruvian bark,  condemned  at  this  port,  was  shipped  to  the  British 
Provinces,  and  subsequently  sent  from  thence  to  one  of  our 
southern  ports,  unprovided  with  a  special  examiner,  and  there 
admitted  to  entry  Journ.  and  Trans.  Md.  Journ.  Pharm., 
1859. 
ON  INFUSIONS. 
By  Mr.  Stevenson. 
We  are  all  practically  familiar  with  the  frequent  inconvenience 
experienced  in  dispensing  prescriptions  containing  the  infusions 
of  the  Pharmacopoeia.  The  concentrated  infusions  have  been  in- 
troduced with  the  view  of  obviating  this  inconvenience,but  I  think 
the  great  majority  of  Pharmaceutists  regard  their  use  as  eminent- 
ly unsatisfactory.  I  have  been  induced  to  bring  under  your  no- 
tice this  evening  a  plan  which  we  have  adopted  and  practiced 
for  many  years,  and  which,  from  its  extreme  simplicity,  and  the 
perfect  success  which  has  attended  it,  will,  I  trust,  recommend 
itself  to  your  favorable  consideration. 
It  has  not  the  merit  of  originality  or  novelty,  being  merely 
the  application  in  a  simple  and  practical  form  of  the  principle 
on  which  the  familiar  essence  of  beef  is  prepared,  and  has  in- 
deed already  been  applied  to  the  preservation  of  infusions  by 
Mr.  Alsop,  of  London,  as  described  in  Mr.  Redwood's  Practical 
Pharmacy.  He  recommends  the  infusions  to  be  filled  into 
bottles  with  accurately  ground  stoppers,  to  be  heated  until  the 
infusion  overflows,  then  to  be  closed  immediately  with  the 
stoppers,  which  are  to  be  slightly  coated  with  wax,  so  as  to 
render  the  bottles  perfectly  air-tight.  I  think  there  are  several 
disadvantages  attending  this  plan,  not  the  least  of  which  must 
be  the  uncertainty  of  obtaining  perfectly  accurately  fitted  stop- 
pers-— a  condition  on  which  the  success  of  the  process  absolutely 
depends.     Our  adaptation  of  the  plan  is  as  follows : — We  fill 
