330 
ECLECTIC PHARMACY. 
of the article in question. That our readers may see his argument 
as presented by himself, the following remarkable passages are 
quoted. 
" It is often asked with respect to Podophyllin, Leptandrin, and other analo- 
gous preparations, am I the discoverer of these ? I answer, I am so in the 
same sense that Fulton invented the steamboat, and Morse the electric tele- 
graph. The power of steam and its application to machinery, was known 
before the time of Fulton, and it had even been applied to the propelling of 
a boat ; but he carried these inventions one step further, im&first made them 
of practical utility in navigation. 
The properties of electro-magnetism, and even its power to produce 
mechanical motion, was known before the inventions of Morse. He only 
advanced a step on these discoveries and made them subservient to the im- 
portant uses they now perform. 
So of these medicines. Other pharmaceutists had partially examined the 
Podophyllum, the Macrotys, and several other of our indigenous medical 
plants, and had discovered that among other proximate principles, they 
contained one of a resinous character, and Mr. Lewis, of the Philadelphia 
College of Pharmacy, (whose analysis was probably previous to mine, 
although not published till afterwards,) announced that the resin of Podo- 
phyllum was a drastic cathartic in doses of six or eight grains. But these 
discoveries lay as dead facts in the records of science until, without a know- 
ledge of any of them, I obtained these principles in a purer form, and by a 
more eligible process, and immediately tested their operation, and with the 
efficient co-operation of the professors, and other physicians of the Eclectic 
school by whom I am .surrounded, established their character as among the 
most important agents of the materia medica." 
After thus attempting to sustain the extraordinary claim he 
had set up to originality, the author proceeds to describe the 
method he adopts to obtain these resinoids. 
4 'The process for procuring these is, in theory, very simple. It is in gene- 
ral to obtain a saturated alcoholic tincture of the root. To this add a large 
quantity of water, and distil off the alcohol. The watery menstruum holds 
in solution the gum, mucilage, extractive and most of the coloring matter, 
while the resinoid substance subsides, and is collected, washed and dried. 
Still the process requires in many points no little skill and pharmaceutical 
experience for its success. 
The yield of these resinoids ; from different roots, varies considerably, as 
might be expected, but the average of these principles is from two to four 
per cent., or fronfa half oz. to one oz. from the pound of powdered root. 
In the manufacture of these medicines the price of the root is but a moiety 
of the actual cost. The grinding, the waste of alcohol, even with the most 
