172 DISPENSATORY OF THE U. S. OF AMERICA. 
pruning redundances and concentrating the new matter 
within the smallest possible space, the authors have been 
vcompelled to exceed the former limits by more than one 
hundred pages." 
The method and arrangement of the United States Dis- 
pensatory are too familiar to require their being detailed ; 
the same divisions have been introduced into this as in for- 
mer revisions. The changes that have been made consist of 
new information with regard to the articles of the materia 
medica, with additional accounts of medicinal substances; 
the improvements which preparations have undergone in 
their modes of formation; an exposition of such as have 
been recently introduced; and, lastly, the improvements in 
pharmaceutical processes. 
It would be impossible, except in an elaborate analysis, 
to present all the particulars in which alteration is apparent, 
as this would occupy more space than we can allot to them. 
We shall, therefore, have to restrict our attention to such as 
are most striking and important. To facilitate our endeavor, 
we shall present the articles of the materia medica as they 
are afforded by the three kingdoms of Nature, taking up first 
those of the vegetable. 
Jiloe.- — Upon the authority of Lindley's Flora Medica, 
it is stated that the Ji. purpurascens, Ji. arborescens, 
J2. commelyni, and J2. multiformis, all natives of the 
Cape of Good Hope, yield the product in addition to the 
species to which it has hitherto been referred. The three 
species that are particularly described are, the Ji. spicata, 
the one assumed as officinal by the U. S. and London Phar- 
macopoeias, the socotrina, and Ji. vulgaris. The Cape 
aloes is " collected by the Hottentots and Dutch boors, in- 
discriminately from the A. spicata and other species which 
grow wild in great abundance. The process is very simple. 
According to the account of Hallbeck, a Moravian mission- 
ary, who resided at the Cape, a hole is made in the ground, 
in which a sheep skin is spread with the smooth side in- 
