OLEUM  jETHEREUM  AND  SPIRITUS  JSTHERIS  COMPOSITUS.  201 
facturers,  taking  with  them,  as  they  must  do,  public  confidence 
and  support  from  the  profession,  and  transferring  this  confidence 
and  support  to  some  enterprising  quack,  who,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
compound  cathartic  pill,  preparations  of  spigelia,  quinia,  strych- 
nia, &c„,  through  cupidity  again,  takes  it  up  under  a  new  name, 
makes  it  properly  and  uses  it  to  the  irreparable  injury  of  legiti- 
mate medicine. 
The  assertion  is  probably  not  strictly  true  that  the  curative 
agency  of  Hoffman's  anodyne  belongs  to  it  as  found  in  the  market, 
and  not  as  contemplated  in  the  Pharmacopoeia,  but  rather  that  its 
inefficiency  is  thus  fastened  upon  it,  so  that  every  physican  who 
prescribes  it  loses  by  it  in  his  value  to  the  community,  and  trans- 
mits the  effect  to  his  profession  at  large.  Any  proposition, 
therefore,  to  dilute  the  Pharmacopoeia  down  to  the  manufacturers' 
standard  in  this,  or  any  preparation,  should  be  entertained  with 
great  caution  by  all  who  have  faith  or  experience  in  an  intrinsic 
value  to  medicinal  preparations.  The  writer,  from  being  firmly 
established  in  the  principles  truth  and  efficacy  of  the  theory  and 
practice  of  the  science  and  art  of  medicine,  and  from  having  had 
an  opportunity  of  using  good  medicinal  preparations,  allows  no 
chance  of  opposing  such  propositions  to  escape  him. 
In  Soubeiran's  process  for  making  ether,  (see  Amer.  Jour. 
Pharm.,  vol.  iv.,  3d  series,  p.  385,)  the  mixture  of  ether  and  alcohol 
delivered  by  the  middle  condenser  may  be  properly  used  in  making 
the  compound  spirit  of  ether.  It  is  usually  not  far  from  the 
proper  composition,  but  requires  only  the  addition  of  a  little 
alcohol  to  bring  it  to  the  proper  s.  g.  When  ether  has  been 
made  strictly  according  to  the  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia,  and  is  mixed 
with  alcohol  in  the  proportion  directed  for  the  compound  spirit, 
the  s.  g.  of  the  mixture  is  found  to  vary  between  -808  and  -814. 
The  rectified  residue  of  the  ether  process  brought  up  to  the  s.g. 
of  «812  by  the  addition  of  alcohol,  is  therefore  properly  available 
for  making  the  compound  spirit  of  ether  from,  yet  at  that  stage 
it  is  as  far  from  being  Hoffman's  anodyne  as  diluted  alcohol  is 
from  being  laudanum,  for  it  contains  scarcely  a  trace  of  heavy 
oil  of  wine,  while  its  light  oil  of  wine  has  not  been  considered  of 
anodyne  effect. 
But  if,  as  in  this  Laboratory,  the  whole  of  the  ether  residue 
is  utilized  in  the  extraction  of  tannic  acid,  the  direct  mixture  of 
