126 
Iodine-yielding  Algce.. 
/"Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
(      Mar.,  1882. 
Whether  upon  consideration  of  the  foregoing — which  amounts  sim- 
ply to  the  long  known  fact  of  their  being  richest  in  iodine — the  I^ami- 
narise  should,  for  medical  employment,  be  preferred  to  Fucus  vesicxdo- 
sus  and  its  congeners  must  of  course  be  for  the  profession  alone  to 
determine.  As  pharmacists,  however,  we  are  already  witliin  our 
province  in  stating  our  grounds  for  the  therapeutic  investigation  of 
new  remedies.  Of  the  direct  employment  of  Laminarise  in  this  sense 
or  even  popularly  in  this  country,  I  have  been  unable  to  obtain  infor- 
mation. Dr.  Royle,  however,  states  that  laminaria  from  the  Euxine 
or  Caspian  Sea,  or  from  the  Persian  Gulf,  finds  its  ways  to  the  foot  of 
the  Himalayas,  where  it  is  employed  as  a  cure  for  goitre;  also  that  in 
South  America  the  stems  are  sold  by  the  name  of  goitre  sticks,  because 
they  are  chewed  by  the  inhabitants  where  goitre  is  prevalent.  Now  it 
may  be  here  remarked  that  the  mere  consideration  of  these,  perhaps, 
prima  facie  grounds  for  therapeutical  inquiry,  would  have  been 
deemed  by  the  writer  wholly  insufficient  to  have  warranted  his  claim- 
ing the  attention  of  this  meeting  had  not  he,  whilst  separating  the 
iodine  from  a  decoction  of  Laminaria  saccharina,  been  impressed 
with  the  probability,  and  after  trial,  assurance  of  the  capability  of  the 
decoction  of  the  latter  to  emulsify  cod  liver  oil  both  easily  and  per- 
fectly, and,  thus  far,  with  so  much  promise  of  therapeutical  fitness  for 
the  purpose  as  to  well  nigh  warrant  the  belief  that  a  long  felt  deside- 
ratum had  by  it  been  obtained. 
Thr  following  notes  and  formulae  embody  the  results  of  the  writer's 
investigations  : 
Laminaria  Cloustoni. — The  fronds  of  this  yield  a  decoction  rich  in 
iodine,  though  perhaps  in  somewhat  less  measure  than  L.  flexicaulis. 
The  writer  is  unable  to  suggest  any  particular  employment  for  which 
it  should  be  preferred  to  the  other  members  of  the  genus.  From 
the  facility,  however,  with  which  its  fronds  are  powdered,  it  would 
afford  a  cheap  and  possibly  useful  compound  of  a  resolvent  poultice 
or,  on  paper  after  the  manner  of  charta  sinapis  or  some  more  flexible 
material  after  the  fashion  of  the  popular  porous  plasters,  supply  on 
soaking  in  water  a  convenient  application  to  scrofulous  joints,  etc. 
Laminaria  flexicaulis. — This  doubtless  is  the  richest  of  all  algse  in 
iodine,  which  it  yields  from  the  fronds  in  larger  percentage  than  either 
the  stem  or  root.  Maceration  with  water  or  proof  spirit  is  found  to 
extract  its  iodides.    Seawater,  also,  whether  of  normal  density  or  con- 
