328  Properties  and  Uses  of  Acaroid  Resin.  {"^"'/uiy'^^sr"* 
the  other  4  parts  of  a  mixture  of  glucose  and  glycerin.  The  former 
pills  were  completely  disintegrated  in  less  time  than  those  made  with 
the  mixture. 
The  author  had  formerly  regarded  glycerite  of  tragacantli  as  the 
most  useful  excipient^  but  his  experiments  convinced  him  of  the 
•superiority  of  glucose  in  most  cases,  which  also  served  the  purpose 
.-admirably  Avitli  a  number  of  substances  that  had  previously  occasioned 
more  or  less  difficulty,  particularly  mixtures  of  aloes  and  exsiccated 
ferrous  sulphate,  quinia  sulphate  and  sodium  salicylate,  calomel  and 
prepared  chalk,  tannin  and  opium,  lead  acetate  and  opium,  and  others. 
In  all  these  cases  the  pills  made  with  glucose  were  readily  dissolved  or 
completely  disintegrated.  * 
PROPERTIES  AND  USES  OF  ACAROID  RESIN. 
Syracuse,  jN".  Y.,  June  13,  1881. 
J^ditor  of  the  Ameincan  Journal  of  Pharmaey  : 
Dear  Sir — The  articles  on  the  Xantliorrhoea  Resins,  page  217,  and 
on  Acaroid  Resin,  page  283  of  this  year's  Journal,  recalled  to  my 
mind  very  vividly  the  instructions  of  my  valued  teacher,  Dr.  Wm. 
Tully,  of  New  Haven,  Conn.,  who,  at  the  time  of  my  medical  pupilage, 
thirty-five  years  ago,  hac^  recently  resigned  the  chair  of  Materia  Med- 
ica  and  Therapeutics  in  the  Yale  Medical  College.  I  have  looked  u}) 
the  notes  of  the  private  course  of  lectures  he  gave  me,  and  find  some 
matters  that  I  think  will  be  interesting  to  your  readers. 
Besides  some  of  the  synonyms  given  in  your  article,  page  217,  Dr. 
Tully  gives  Gummi-resina  lutea,  Gummi  flavum,  Yellow  gum  and 
Gum  lac  of  the  ground  (Tasman).  Of  the  plant  Zanthorrhoea  Hastile^ 
he  gives  the  synonyms  Acarois  resinifera  (Phillips),  Acoroides  resini- 
fera  (Pharm.  Mass.),  Yellow  resin  tree  (White),  Botany  Bay  gum  tree, 
-Spear  yellow  gum  tree  (R.  Brown),  Grass  tree.  He  remarks  that 
what  appears  to  be  the  stem  of  the  plant  is  botanically  a  root ;  the 
leaves  are  hence  radical,  and  the  peduncle  a  scape."  The  plant  is  fig- 
ured in  Lindley's  "  Vegetable  Kingdom,"  page  203. 
With  regard  to  the  medicinal  effects  of  this  resin  Dr.  Tully  observes, 
I  remember  distinctly  that  Dr.  Tully  insisted  that  the  specific  name 
should  be  spelled  with  a  capital,  on  the  ground  that  it  is  a  noun  in  the 
nominative  ease,  in  apposition  with  Zanthorrhoea,  and  not  an  adjective, 
qualifying  the  generic  name. 
