AMERICAN NARCOTIC AND OTHER EXTRACTS. 207 
3d. Extract of Hemlock, (Conium. )— This sample, now 
nearly five months in our possession, lias a soft pulpy con- 
sistence, dark green color, and the heavy, peculiar odor of 
the plant when bruised. When triturated with powdered 
caustic potassa, the peculiar mouse-like odor of couia 
became strongly perceptible, together with a pungency due 
to ammonia eliminated by the potassa from the natural am- 
moniacal salts. When compared by this test with the best 
English extract we have met with, it quite equals it. 
There is perhaps no instance where vaccuum evaporation 
is more applicable than in reference to Conium, the active 
principle of which, in a free state, passes off with evaporat- 
ing water like a volatile oil. Now, although conia exists 
naturally combined with an acid, yet we have reason to be- 
lieve that this natural combination is not so fixed as to resist 
the decomposing agencies of heat and exposure to which 
the juice is often exposed before its final iuspissation. If 
Tilden & Co's. extract of conium was of the proper piluiar 
consistence, and had the chlorophylle removed, (accord- 
ing to the Pharmacopoeia, it would leave little to be de- 
sired. 
In observing closely the specimen before us we observe 
numerous brown spotson the surface of the extract against 
the glass, in which, owing to excess of moisture a slow fer- 
mentation has commenced, resulting in the destruction of 
the chlorophylle and the formation of an acid, probably 
the acetic, as according to the label alcohol has been used 
in its preparation. This change would not have occurred 
had the extract been of firmer consistence. The general 
mass of the extract has about the same degree of acidity 
observable in the English article. 
Extract of Henbane, (Hyoscyamus.) — This extract, as 
it now stands before us, consists of a dark green pulpy mass, 
with here and therethrough it, and on its surface, separated 
portions of a dark brown syrupy liquid, arising from the 
insufficient evaporation of the extract originally, and the 
