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SELECTED ARTICLES. 
name of sarsaparilla; to this may be added the insufficiency 
of the menstruum employed, and the faulty, not to say de- 
structive method pursued in its preparation, especially from 
its long boiling, as directed by the colleges; the Rio Negro 
sarsa is mostly consumed in the Oronoko, Varinas, and other 
neighboring parts, being constantly employed by them as a 
substitute for mercury in syphilitic and all chronical disorders; 
as an article of commerce it never finds its way into this 
country, and even should it do so, it would be lost among the 
many roots passing under the common denomination of sarsa. 
I have often regretted that measures had not been taken by 
some one well known to the faculty to supply the public with 
the genuine xarave del rey, or compound of Rio Negro sarsa- 
parilla, and this more especially, since I find certain spurious 
preparations assuming that name without the least pretensions 
to it; in fact, being entirely deficient of its efficacy or healing 
properties. With some of these preparations my own name 
has been most unaccountably used; and to such an extent has 
this been done, that having a stock of the genuine material, 
and the several ingredients which enter this compound, toge- 
ther with facilities for a regular supply of the same, it is my 
intention, on some future day, as a measure of self-defence, 
and in order to prove its efficacy, to have prepared, under my 
own immediate direction, the true and genuine compound Rio 
Negro sarsaparilla. Lancet. 
ART. XL VIII. — ADULTERATION OF OPIUM. 
We have already spoken of the introduction into France 
of a quantity of opium, either adulterated or deteriorated by 
the abstraction of its morphine. The following directions, 
drawn up by M. Thiboumery, will enable those who deal in 
opium to determine the value of the material which they are 
about to employ for the preparation of morphine, &c. 
