54 
Wine  of  White  Ash. 
/  Am.  Jour.  Phann^ 
(      Feb.,  1882. 
AVINE  OF  WHITE  ASH. 
By  Thos.  S.  Wiegand,  Ph.G. 
Read  at  the  Pharmaceutical  Meeting,  January  17,  1882. 
Within  the  past  two  or  three  years  this  preparation  has  been  pre- 
scribed with  great  success  by  Dr.  Chas.  P.  Turner,  of  this  city,  in  the 
treatment  of  dysmenorrliosa  and  the  troubles  that  so  frequently  com- 
plicate it ;  inquiries  have  been  made  regarding  it  and  it  is  in  answer 
to  these  this  paper  has  been  written. 
The  botanical  name  of  the  tree  is  Fraxinus  americana,  Lin.,  White 
Ash,  sometimes  written  Fraxinus  alba,  improperly  so,  as  no  botanical 
authority  which  I  have  consulted  gives  this  as  a  synonym;  Dr.  Muh- 
lenbei"g,  the  botanist,  proposed  the  name  of  discolor  in  consequence  of 
the  marked  difference  between  the  upper  and  under  surfaces  of  the 
leaf. 
The  tree,  which  is  one  of  the  largest  of  our  forest  trees,  reaching  in 
favorable  locations  a  height  of  eighty  feet,  with  a  diameter  of  three 
feet,  is  found  mostly  in  swampy  lands  or  on  the  margins  of  rivers  ;  it 
flourishes  in  northern  New  York  and  northward  in  Canada,  but  is  found 
in  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania  and  farther  south  and  west;  its  common 
"  name  of  White  Ash  is  most  probably  due  to  the  color  of  the  bark  by 
which  it  may  easily  be  distinguished ;  on  the  trunk  of  the  tree  the  bark  is 
often  deeply  furrowed  and  divided  into  squares  of  1  to  3  inches;  the  foli- 
age is  made  up  of  compound  leaves  consisting  of  3  or  4  pairs  of  leaflets^ 
with  a  terminal  one ;  the  leaflets  being  oval  acuminate,  petiolat^  and 
glaucous  on  the  under  side.  An  excellent  plate,  showing  the  leaf  half 
the  natural  size,  and  the  fruit  of  full  size,  is  given  in  Michaux's 
"  North  American  Sylva,"  from  which  this  description  has  been  taken. 
The  bark,  as  found  in  commerce,  is  usually  concised  transversely,. 
and  when  dried  is  of  a  light  salmon  color,  of  very  slight  odor  and 
bitterish  taste.    The  virtues  are  best  extracted  by  a  weak  alcoholic 
menstruum.    The  following  formula  yields  a  preparation  which  Dr. 
Turner  has  found  most  useful  in  practice : 
Take  of  Inner  bark  of  the  White  Ash,  powd.  No.  40,  5viii 
Sherry  wine  sufficient  for      .  .  .  Oii 
Macerate  the  bark  for  three  days,  pack  firmly  in  a  cylindrical  percolator 
and  displace  slowly  two  pints. 
The  wine  thus  prepared  has  a  color  of  brown  sherry  and  a  taste 
quite  peculiar.    The  usual  dose  is  a  teaspoonful  3  times  a  day. 
