ON  THE  ALKALOIDS  OF  HYDRASTIS. 
497 
therefore,  employed  as  an  assistant  in  our  laboratory,  Prof.  H. 
D.  Garrison,  a  chemist  of  no  mean  acquirements,  and  while  he 
works  under  our  direction,  and  a  good  portion  of  the  particular 
experiments  and  the  steps  pursued  are  at  my  suggestion,  the 
manipulations  are  almost  all  performed  and  the  results  obtained 
by  him.* 
*Note  by  the  Editor. — It  seems  needful  to  again  refer  to  the  subject  of 
Mr.  Merrill's  paper,  in  order  that  we  shall  be  fairly  understood,  both  by 
the  author  and  reader.  The  question  at  issue  relates  to  the  discovery  of 
the  active  principles  of  the  root  of  Hydrastis  canadensis.  In  our  July 
number,  we  published  an  extract  of  a  letter  to  Mr.  Parrish  with  the  au- 
thority of  the  writer,  Mr.  Merrill,  and  accompanied  the  paper  with  a  criti- 
cal note.  In  that  paper  Mr.  Merrill  spoke  of  the  two  alkaloids  in  the  Hy- 
drastis, as  though  he  had  discovered  them,  and  applies  names  to  them  as 
though  they  had  not  been  written  of  before,  he  giving  the  commercial  hy- 
drastin the  name  of  Durand's  alkaloid,  hydrastia;  and  calling  the  latter 
hydrastina  ;  and  it  was  to  what  we  believed  to  be  a  disposition  to  ignore  the 
labors  of  others  that  we  applied  the  terms  "  this  assumption  is  to  be 
discountenanced."     Mr.  Merrill's  explanations  tend  to  modify  this  belief, 
In  the  present  paper,  Mr.  Merrill  says,  "  It  is  evident  in  regard  to  all 
of  us  that  our  investigations  were  entirely  independent  of  the  others, 
whichever  may  be  entitled  to  credit  in  point  of  time."  "  I  certainly  have 
no  wish  to  arrogate  to  myself  the  merits  of  other  men's  skill  or  discove- 
ries, although  I  may  be  remiss  in  keeping  myself  posted  in  regard  to 
them." 
Now  we  will  not  grant  the  position,  that  Mr.  Merrill  discovered  either 
of  the  alkaloids,  much  less  both  of  them,  in  the  proper  sense  of  making 
a  discovery  ;  nor  can  we  admit  Mr.  Merrill's  alleged  ignorance  of  the 
details  of  Durand's  paper,  as  an  argument  in  his  favor,  in  view  of  his 
knowledge  of  its  existence  near  at  hand,  as  he  himself  admits.  In  1856,  when 
sending  out  a  collection  of  the  American  Materia  Medica  to  Mr.  Jacob  Bell, 
for  the  Museum  of  the  Pharmaceutical  Society,  we  wrote  to  Mr.  Wayne,  of 
Cincinnati,  for  certain  specimens  not  easily  obtainable  here.  In  his  reply 
to  my  letter,  Mr.  Wayne,  under  date  Cincinnati,  May  23d,  1856,  says, 
.  .  .  .  "  I  have  sent  you  among  the  lot  specimens  sanguinarina, 
sulphate  of  sanguinarina,  hydrastin,  and  hydrastia  f  I  think  the  last  lias 
all  claims  to  be  called  an  alkaloid.  The  specimen  is  as  white  as  it  can  be 
made,  much  more  so  than  your  pet  specimen,  ^alluding  to  a  specimen  of  Du- 
rand's hydrastia  in  our  cabinet,  presented  to  us  in  1851,  and  which  we 
had  shown  to  him  on  a  previous  occasion].  I  have  a  new  process  for  ob- 
taining hydrastin,  at  least  I  have  seen  no  mention  of  it.  I  treat  the  coarse 
powdered  root  with  cold  water  in  a  percolator.  To  the  infusion  I  add  an 
acid,  generally  muriatic  acid,  which  throws  down  the  hydrastin  as  a  yel- 
