Am.  Jour.  Pbarm.> 
September.  1904.  j 
Pharmacy  and  Chemistry. 
409 
in  another  jar.  Dragon  teeth  and  bones !  Lung  Nga  is  Chinese  for 
dragon  teeth;  they  "  quiet  the  mind  and  heart,  cure  tumors  in  the 
neck  of  adults  and  fright  in  children." 
The  Chinese  make  some  fine  chemicals  of  apparently  highest 
purity.  White  alum  from  Hankow  is  pure  white  in  color  and  we 
could  distinguish  octahedral  terminations.  Vermillion  from  China 
has  long  been  considered  to  be  the  best  made,  by  painters ;  a  fine 
jarful  is  exhibited.  Calomel  of  good  appearance  also  comes  from 
Hankow.  Sulphate  of  iron,  also  there  called  green  alum,  fills  sev- 
eral jars  from  Siufu  and  Cheefoo. 
Of  minerals  used  in  medicine  I  found  iron  pyrites  and  realgar,  the 
latter,  the  red  sulphide  of  arsenic. 
CHINESE  PHARMACEUTICALS. 
Practically  the  only  liquid  preparations  made  are  the  infusions, 
and  these  are  always  made  in  the  patient's  home.  Alcohol,  vinegar, 
glycerine,  ether  and  the  like  are  not  used  in  the  native  Chinese  drug 
store  as  solvents.  The  only  liquid  preparations  found  are  medicated 
oils.  Ointments,  pastes,  pills  galore,  powders,  simple  and  compound, 
are  practically  the  only  preparations  made.  They  are  highly 
advanced  along  patent  medicine  lines,  fine  advertisements  extolling 
the  peculiar  virtues  of  preparations  are  gotten  up. 
Chinese  pills  are  not  like  the  nice  little  sugar-coated  American 
product,  but  they  stand  in  a  class  of  their  own.  There  is  nothing 
small  about  these  Chinese  pills,  they  are  great ;  not  only  are  they 
elegant  in  appearance,  but  often  of  such  generous  proportions  that 
they  weigh  an  ounce.  Fortunately  for  the  Chinese,  they  do  not 
swallow  them  whole,  but  cut  them  into  as  many  pills  as  is  desired 
by  their  physician.  The  Chinese  pill  is  a  bolus  carefully  rounded 
and  of  the  usual  consistency  of  a  pill  mass,  the  dearer  pill  is  coated 
with  gold  leaf  to  preserve  it,  but,  as  even  with  such  treatment 
the  pills  would  harden,  the  Chinese  druggist  gets  in  his  peculiar 
ingenuity  and  encases  the  entire  pill  in  a  beautiful  wax  coat.  Such 
pills  retain  their  original  freshness  for  a  great  length  of  time.  When 
you  buy  the  pill  at  the  druggist's  he  will  remove  this  wax  coat,  then 
weigh  the  pill,  and  you  pay  accordingly.  Some  pills  are  sold  by 
number,  but  the  usual  practice  is  the  above.  To  give  an  idea  as  to 
their  pills  I  copied  the  following  in  the  exhibit: 
"  Seven  Precious  Ingredients  Im-Tam  Pill,"  a  tonic  for  the  Ming- 
Mun  (small  of  back  between  kidneys). 
