304 
IODIDE OF QUINIUM, ETC. 
The recently prepared and soft aqueous extract of cantharides 
has been shown to be a powerful epispastic. Will this extract of 
the consistence of honey, associated with sufficient acetic acid, 
alcohol, or acetone, to preserve it, keep without the gradual sepa- 
iation of the cantharidin ? If so, it will undoubtedly^prove one of 
the very best blistering agents, as by simply applying a covering 
of it over the surface of waxed paper, or adhesive plaster, with a 
camel's-hair brush, a perfect blistering plaster can be made quickly 
and neatly, and all tendency to change of aggregation by the ac- 
tion of the air on the menstruum avoided. This is a question now 
under trial, and should it result favorably, a formula will be pub- 
lished. The extraordinary tendency of cantharidin to crystal- 
lize, even under the most adverse circumstances, taken in connec- 
tion with its insolubility, per se, has hardly received sufficient at- 
tention from pharmaceutists as a cause of the deterioration of can- 
tharidal preparations, and the discovery of a menstruum, that 
will retain that principle in solution for an indefinite period, is a 
problem yet to be solved, and worthy the attention of pharmaceuti- 
cal investigators. 
Philadelphia, Sept, 1852. 
OBSERVATIONS ON CERTAIN COMPOUNDS OF IODINE WITH QUI- 
NIA AND CINCHONIA, AND ON SEVERAL PREPARATIONS FROM 
PODOPHYLLUM, SANGUINA'RIA, AND CONIUM. 
By W. Manlius Smith, M. D. 
A portion of my medical studies were conducted under the 
private instruction of Dr. William Tully, of New Haven, (now of 
Springfield, Mass.) That gentleman was in the habit of prescrib- 
ing in scrofulous diseases a preparation he called protiodide of 
quinium, the termination um being in analogy with ammoniwTTi, 
on the supposition that the reaction occurring is similar to that 
where ammonia is presumed to become ammonium by combination. 
His formula was simply this : — To a known quantity, say one 
equivalent of disulphate of quinia, dissolved in the smallest possi- 
ble quantity of boiling distilled water, a quantity equal to two 
equivalents of iodide of potassium was added. Sometimes, though 
