ON  PILLS  OF  SULPHATE   OF  QUINIA. 
291 
substances  which  appear  most  likely  to  repay  a  full  investigation, 
glycerin  is  certainly  not  the  least  promising.  A  want  of  time 
and  apparatus  prevented  me  from  pushing  my  researches  as  far  as 
I  could  have  wished,  but  my  experiments,  although  unsuccessful 
in  proving  the  correctness  of  my  suppositions,  have  only  given  me 
a  firmer  belief  that  they  will  yet  prove  to  be  in  accordance  with 
facts. 
ON  PILLS  OF  SULPHATE  OF  QUINIA. 
By  Edward  Parrish. 
Although  it  is  not  always  left  to  the  discretion  of  the  apothecary, 
what  excipients  to  employ  in  compounding  prescriptions,  yet  he 
should  be  so  familiar  with  the  subject  as  to  be  able  to  advise  and 
instruct  medical  men  in  regard  to  those  which  are  really  most  ad- 
vantageous in  the  case  of  each  of  the  leading  remedies  extempo- 
raneously prescribed.  There  are  few  intelligent  apothecaries  who 
have  not  a  salutary  influence  in  modifying  the  views  of  neighbor- 
ing practitioners  in  regard  to  the  art  of  prescribing,  and  none  who 
have. not  frequent  occasion  to  exercise  their  own  judgment,  not 
only  in  the  selection  of  excipients,  but  in  other  practical  points  in 
extemporaneous  pharmacy. 
There  is,  I  believe,  no  medicine  so  frequently  prescribed  in  the 
pilular  form  as  the  sulphate  of  quinia,  and  perhaps  none,  in  making 
which  into  pills,  there  is  so  great  a  diversity  of  practice.  The 
following  substances  are  much  employed  as  excipients  for  this  ob- 
ject :  Gum  arabic,  simple  syrup,  syrup  of  gum  arabic,  honey, 
molasses,  conserve  of  roses,  crumb  of  bread,  flour,  and  simple  water; 
and  besides  these,  tannic  acid,  extract  of  cinchona,  and  various 
tonic,  astringent  and  narcotic  extracts,  which  assist,  or  in  some 
way  modify  the  effect  of  the  alkaloid  to  meet  particular  indications 
in  disease. 
Most  pharmaceutists  and  medical  practitioners  have  no  doubt  a 
preference  for  one  or  other  of  these,  and,  as  is  well  known,  there  are 
in  standard  works  several  formulae  indicating  similar  preferences. 
Dr.  Pereira  directs  the  pills  to  be  made  with  conserve  of  roses, 
and  in  the  three  formulae  given  in  Pharmacopee  Universalle,  crumb 
of  bread,  honey  and  conserve  of  roses,  are  directed.  Dorvault  di- 
rects in  L'Officine,  for  disulphate,  the  extract  of  wormwood  ;  for 
the  acid  sulphate,  conserve  of  roses.  The  pills  are  not  officinal  in 
