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ON THE VOLATILE OIL OF NUTMEGS 
The contents of the vat having commenced to crystallize, the 
process is hastened by frequent agitation with a wooden hoe, and 
the salt when formed is dried and thrown up in heaps on the em- 
bankments for transportation. When this is required it is trans- 
ferred by the workmen to large boxes set on truck cars, drawn 
into the town by asses, and deposited near the sea-side in extensive 
heaps. From these the droghers are loaded ; the salt being con- 
veyed in boats which receive it at the end of a wharf, which is 
composed of the wreck of an old barque, (the Ariel, of Boston) 
extending through and beyon the surf. Some other of these 
islands also furnish quantities of this commodity, but none so much 
as that just spoken of. 
ON THE VOLATILE OIL OF NUTMEGS. 
By G. G. MlTSCHERLICH. 
From a series of experiments with ol. nueistae sethereura on 
rabbits, Mitscherlich draws the following conclusions : — 
1. The volatile oil of nutmegs is a strong poison ; for six 
* drachms of it killed a middle-sized rabbit in the space of 13J 
hours ; two drachms killed a strong rabbit within five days ; one 
drachm killed a small rabbit in about thirty hours ; one drachm 
of the oil injected into the stomach of a full-grown rabbit made 
it sick and ill for several days, after which it recovered. The vo- 
latile oil of nutmegs is weaker in its action than the oils of mus- 
tard, savine, and caraway, and is stronger than the oils of fennel, 
lemon, turpentine, juniper and copaiba, but is nearly equal in 
strength to the oil of cinnamon. 
2. The oil of nutmegs is absorbed, and appears to undergo a 
change in the blood, and passes out in this altered condition in the 
urine, to which it imparts a peculiar, pleasant, aromatic odor. 
Neither the natural odor nor the changed odor could precisely be 
discovered in the blood or in the breath. 
