PHARMACOLOGICAL HISTORY OF QUASSIA. 
39 
saline bodies. But, for myself, it possesses another interest, 
viz.: the presence of nitrate of potassa in quassia, which I 
announced nineteen years ago,* and which has been confirmed 
by the recent investigations of M. Wiggers. 
Spontaneous development of Gas in Wine of Quassia. 
No preparation is less determined in its composition, or 
more variable, than the wine of quassia, directed by the Codex. 
The Russian Pharmacopoeia prescribes from one drachm to 
four of quassia; M. Alibert two drachms, and the Pharma- 
copoeia of Hanover, (1819,) under the name of vinous tincture 
of quassia, fixes the quantity of this wood at two ounces to 
the pint of Malaga wine. That which affords the subject of 
the present observation, had been prepared from the formula 
of a physician, in the proportion of two ounces to the pint of the 
white wine of Chablis. As several patients were using this 
wine at the same time, the physician desired me to prepare a 
certain quantity of it. But the formula having been modified 
afterwards, two bottles remained on hand, which were labelled 
and preserved in the cellar, where they remained about eigh- 
teen months, when I examined their contents. To do this, the 
bottles, which had been placed on their sides, were removed 
with caution; the wine was limpid, a light grayish deposit 
had subsided to the inferior portion. A slight movement 
detached it in the form of semi-transparent filimentous flocculi. 
The bottles, unopened, were set by to allow the precipitate 
to settle and the liquid to become clear, which required but a 
few hours. I then prepared to decant the wine, but scarcely 
had I attempted to draw the cork, when it was forced out 
with violence, and the wine flowed out, effervescing like lively 
Champagne. Its bitter taste was a little diminished, or rather 
masked by the carbonic acid gas, and was not unpleasant. 
Exposed to the air during more than twenty-four hours, it 
was still gaseous, was neither colored or cloudy, and no saline 
* See the article ^mer, of M. Guersent, in the Dictionnaire de Medecine, 
vol. 20. 
