6 
ON SYRUP OF SARSAPARILLA. 
ART. II.— OBSERVATIONS ON SYRUP OF SARSAPARILLA. 
By Thomas J. Husband. 
(Bead at the Pharmaceutical Meeting of the College March 6, 1843.) 
Few medicines of such undoubted remedial powers, as 
are now justly conceded to belong to Sarsaparilla, have un- 
dergone so many changes in reputation. Perhaps at no pe- 
riod has it been more highly esteemed in this country, than 
at the present time. The improved formulae for its differ- 
ent preparations in the U. S. Pharmacopoeia of 1830, which 
have been observed generally by the Pharmaceutists of this 
city, for the past ten or twelve years, has no doubt been the 
means of elevating its character in the view of the medical 
profession, as one of our most valuable remedies in a varie- 
ty of diseases. A fear that through the same channel of 
authority, its good character is about to be in some measure 
destroyed, has induced me to perform a series of experi- 
ments, for the purpose of testing the value of the new pro- 
cess for extracting its active properties, which has been 
proposed in the late edition of the Pharmacopoeia, and 
adopted by some apothecaries ; that of displacement with 
cold water. Having lately had occasion to prepare some 
Syrup of Sarsaparilla, 1 pursued carefully this plan, and al- 
though it yielded a syrup highly colored, and beautiful in 
appearance, it certainly possessed less of the peculiar acri- 
monous taste that characterizes all efficient preparations of 
this root, than is usually observed in the syrup prepared 
with diluted alcohol. 
No. 1. Four ounces of Sarsaparilla, well bruised and ma- 
cerated for twenty-four hours, was carefully treated with 
water by the displacement process, until the last portions of 
it acquired but little color. The infusion thus obtained, 
