270 
PREPARATIONS  OF  CONIUM  MACULATUM,  ETC. 
effect  should  follow.  She  slept  well.  On  the  following  night, 
f  siij  were  given,  and  there  was  no  sleep.  On  the  18th  she  took 
f  gss  at  night,  but  did  not  sleep  well  after  it.  On  the  19th 
f  £vij  were  given,  and  she  had  a  good  night's  rest.  Having 
used  her  supply,  the  conium  was  suspended  for  a  few  days,  and 
opiates  (wixv  to  wxxx  tincturse  opii)  administered  instead. 
Meanwhile  the  abscess  was  closing,  the  appetite  returning,  and 
the  health  rapidly  improving.  On  December  1st  she  took  f  Jj, 
and  on  the  2d  f  ^iss,  which  exhausted  my  supply.  On  carefully 
examining  this  woman  from  day  to  day,  and  with  special  refer- 
ence to  the  effect  of  conium,  neither  Dr.  Collie,  one  of  the  resi- 
dent medical  officers  of  the  hospital,  nor  myself,  could  detect  any 
result.  Sleep  followed  some  of  the  doses,  but  was,  no  doubt, 
totally  independent  of  conium.  Great  relief  followed  the  evacu- 
ation of  the  matter,  and  her  health  began  to  improve  directly 
afterwards.    She  is  now  convalescent. 
Examination  of  the  Mare. — In  order  to  make  my  experiments 
more  satisfactory,  I  subjected  the  marc  which  Mr.  Hemingway 
returned  to  me  to  the  following  process : — Placing  it  again  in 
the  percolator,  I  passed  a  solution  of  3j  of  caustic  potash  in 
f  ^viij  of  water  through  it,  and  subsequently  washed  it  with 
water  until  it  passed  through  colorless  ;  f  gxiv  of  dark  brown 
fluid,  resembling  tincture  of  henbane  in  depth  of  color,  were 
thus  procured.  I  subjected  this  to  distillation,  drop  by  drop, 
collecting  the  first  ounce  and  a  half  separately.  I  allowed  f  ^vij 
more  to  distil,  and  set  this  aside.  I  then  'put  one-half  of  the 
marc  (which  had  been  exhausted  by  spirit  and  solution  of  potash) 
into  the  retort  to  the  remaining  fluid,  and  distilled  f  ^iv  more. 
Having  satisfied  myself  that  these  three  fluids  differed  in  no  re- 
spect frOm  each  other,  they  were  mixed,  and  presented  the  fol- 
lowing physical  and  chemical  characters,  which  are  those  of  a 
dilute  aqueous  solution  of  conia : — Colorless  at  first,  but  becom- 
ing brown  on  exposure,  a  dirty  looking,  greyish,  flocculent  scum 
of  greasy  matter  floated  upon  its  surface ;  odor  rank  and  disa- 
greeable, yet  somewhat  resembling  elder-flowers ;  taste  partook 
of  the  smell,  it  somewhat  resembled  hydrocyanic  acid,  and  left  a 
slight  acrid  impression.  Reaction  alkaline ;  nitric  acid  added 
to  a  few  drops  in  a  test  tube  produced,  after  a  few  seconds,  violent 
