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PHARMACEUTICAL NOTICES. 
ART. L VI.— PHARMACEUTICAL NOTICES. No XXI. 
By Augustine Duhamel. 
Consolidation of Copaiba by Wax. 
The once common method of consolidating copaiba by- 
means of calcined magnesia, has in a great measure given way 
to another and more convenient form of administration, under 
the well known name of capsules. The advantages of these 
last over the other, as regards convenience and nicety of 
administration, added to the certainty of ensuring the efiects 
of pure copaiba, are so well understood and appreciated, as 
to render it a work of supererogation to repeat them here. 
With reference to the solidification of copaiba, it should be 
borne in mind that it is only under peculiar conditions that it 
will take place — for instance, the magnesia must be pure, and 
the copiaba old, having undergone a certain degree of inspis- 
sation. If fresh, and consequently rich in essential oil, a 
large quantity of magnesia is required to solidify it— and even 
then only at the expiration of a long period. A mass which 
we made more than six months ago, with as much as one-fourth 
of magnesia, is not yet sufficiently hard to retain the form of 
pill. If to obviate this, you subject it to heat, or employ 
inspissated copaiba of a certain consistence, you readily obtain 
a solidified mass; but which, owing to its hardness and insolu- 
bility in the stomach, is as inefficient a remedy for the 
purposes intended, as ordinary resin would be, prescribed for 
similar uses. The only useful purpose to which we have 
been able to apply the soft or half-solidified mass has been to 
incorporate it with powdered cubebs, and thus prepare a 
compound pill of copaiba and cubebs. It requires, however, 
a very large proportion of the latter, to form with it a good 
pilullar mass. 
A better method is one, the idea of which is taken from a 
prescription of Dr. Berens, a German physician, now practising 
in this city. It is to disolve by heat a certain portion of white 
