Am-  Kyi  iP894arm- }  Can  we  Modify  the  Acridity  of  Guaiac  ?  337 
apothecary  has  been  prayerfully  invoked  to  make  at  least  one  of  the 
tribulations  of  illxiess  more  easy  of  endurance.  The  honesty  of 
duty,  too,  has  been  sorely  tried,  at  times,  under  this  appeal,  and  the 
bitter  sometimes  omitted  from  the  cup  to  that  extent  that  it  has  no 
existence  there  save  in  name.  But  as  it  has  been  declared  impossi- 
ble to  construct  a  silken  purse  out  of  the  substance  of  a  sow's  ear, 
so  likewise  the  natural  fetid  odor  and  rank  taste  of  a  repulsive 
drug  to  become  a  palatable  thing  must  be  so  •transformed  in  its 
character  and  identity  as  to  detract  seriously  from  its  usefulness. 
But,  nevertheless,  the  fiat  has  come  from  the  chamber  of  sickness, 
and  the  ministers  must  strive  to  obey.  The  physician  looks  to  his 
henchman,  the  apothecary,  to  prepare  his  draughts,  and  that  patient 
investigator  of  methods,  known  and  unknown,  seeks  in  his  granule 
and  parvule,  with  its  environment  of  tinted  sugar,  a  solution  of  the 
problem.  Art  has  made  wondrous  strides  in  all  the  numerous 
laterals  of  pharmacy  ;  skill  in  mode  of  preparation,  in  form  of  pre- 
sentation, robs  many  an  otherwise  detested  thing  of  its  natural 
repugnance.  Many  a  boon  to  the  pangs  of  suffering  mortals  is  to 
be  found  in  the  present  domain  of  elegant  and  advanced  pharmacy. 
But  our  query  has  to  consider  a  substance  so  positively  intract- 
able in  its  physical  composition  as  almost  to  defy  ordinary  methods 
to  overcome  it.  Fortunately,  in  medicine,  it  is  not  a  "  sine  qua 
non,"  and,  perhaps,  it  rather  belongs  to  a  previous  period  when 
medication  consisted  wholly  in  crude  substances  in  form  as  nature 
supplied  them.  So  that  it  may  be  said  that  an  enforced  recourse  to 
other  and  more  acceptable  substitutes  has  relegated  guaiacum 
largely  to  a  rear  rank  of  remedies. 
There  is  no  function  of  the  physical  organization,  especially  of 
man,  of  such  extreme  delicacy  and  sensitiveness  as  are  those  of 
the  organs  which  convey  the  sense  of  taste.  Those  numerous 
papilla,  chiefly  of  the  tongue,  guard  like  so  many  alert  sentinels 
the  approach  to  that  important  repository,  the  stomach,  and  give 
instant  warning  when  any  foreign  invader  approaches.  Remon- 
strance, in  which  case,  instead  of  bristling  bayonets,  is  shown  in 
shrugged  shoulders  and  wry  faces,  final  submission  being  always 
accompanied  with  a  protest.  The  guaiac  resin,  for  it  is  a  mis- 
nomer to  call  it  a  gum,  consists  mainly  of  resin,  combined  with  an 
acid  analogous  to  or  identical  with  that  of  benzoin.  This  knowledge 
of  its  composition  reveals  its  character,  that  of  an  acrid  substance 
