3S 
SELECTED ARTICLES. 
Jishes of Quassia. 
The prescriptions of foreign physicians, rigidly executed, 
sometimes become the occasion of instructive observations by 
the apothecary, especially when he manipulates with sub- 
stances little used in the Materia Medica. Such are the ashes 
of quassia. These ashes, in the quantity of two drachms to 
the pint, enter into the composition of a bitter wine, having 
for its base the wood in substance, and as the menstruum, 
Madiera wine, {Formula of a Russian Physician, 1817.) 
Without any data as to the quantity of ashes that it could fur- 
nish, I burned two kilogrammes of quassia, in small pieces, 
in a new and close reverbatory furnace. The product of this 
operation was of ashes, almost as white as pearlashes, 
which proves that the combustion was complete. The unusual 
appearance of this product suggested the idea of submitting it 
to some experiments, into a detail of which I shall not enter, 
inasmuch as they offer nothing new in an analytical point 
of view. I shall confine myself to the general results. 
The ashes of quassia are bitter alkaline. 
Cold water abstracts about twenty-five per cent, of soluble 
matter, composed of pure potassa, carbonate of potassa, free 
lime, muriate of soda, nitrate of potassa, and traces of sulphate 
of the same base. 
The seventy-five per cent, of matter insoluble in cold water, 
still yielded to boiling water a little sulphate of potassa and 
sulphate of lime; the remainder is composed, for the most 
part, of subcarbonate of lime, and a little sulphate. What 
attracted my attention in the composition of quassia ashes, is 
the small proportion of potassa compared with the enormous 
quantity of carbonate of lime. There are few examples of 
vegetable ashes so poor in this alkali. A fact not less remark- 
able, is the existence of nitrate of potassa, untouched in the 
midst of a product that has undergone exposure to a red heat. 
However unusual the fact itself may be, it appears to me 
worthy of notice, were it only for the purpose of attracting 
the attention of those who are in the practice of examining 
