470 
Pharmaceutical  Preparations. 
/  Ado.  Jour.  Pharrtu 
I     October,  1905. 
and  the  use  of  elastic  gelatin  will  no  doubt  always  play  an  im- 
portant part  in  medication  of  this  character.  Although  described 
as  early  as  1857,  the  elastic  capsule  did  not  appear  on  the  market 
until  1885. 
The  fact  that  the  commercial  salts  of  bismuth  exist  in  the  form 
of  sharp,  prismatic  crystals,  or  in  a  coarse  or  dense  physical  condi- 
tion, has  induced  a  Western  manufacturer  to  place  these  salts  on  the 
market  in  the  form  of  a  magma  or  milk  of  bismuth.  As  it  is 
claimed  that  the  action  of  bismuth  salts  is  entirely  mechanical,  it  is 
claimed  for  the  amorphous  bismuth  magmas  that  owing  to  the  ex- 
treme fineness  of  division,  they  are  capable  of  covering  or  coating 
much  more  sensitive  nerve  surface  than  is  possible  by  the  use  of  the 
commercial  salts,  which  on  drying  assume  a  crystalline,  prismatic 
form  or  coalesce  into  granular  masses. 
Cresylic  acid  or  cresol  is  taking  the  place  of  carbolic  acid  as  an 
antiseptic  and  disinfectant.  It  is  used  in  combination  with  soap  and 
is  said  to  be  three  times  more  powerful  as  a  disinfectant  and  three 
times  less  caustic  and  poisonous  than  carbolic  acid.  Large  quantities 
of  the  compound  antiseptic  are  manufactured  in  the  United  States 
annually  and  employed  in  surgical  work  in  I  and  2  per  cent, 
solutions. 
The  use  of  iron  salts,  organic  and  inorganic,  will  always  play  an 
important  part  in  medicine.  The  popular  dialyzed  iron  of  two  dec- 
ades ago  has  been  supplanted  by  the  more  popular  organic  combina- 
tion or  so-called  "peptonate"  of  iron.  Large  quantities  of  the 
solution  of  iron  peptonate  and  manganese  are  manufactured  annually 
,  in  the  United  States. 
The  use  of  glycerino  phosphoric  acid  and  the  glycerino  phos- 
phates in  modern  medication  is  noteworthy,  inasmuch  as  they  may 
eventually  take  the  place  of  the  hypophosphites,  so  largely  employed 
at  present  in  the  form  of  syrups.  Owing  to  their  being  hygroscopic 
their  use  in  tablets  is  not  practicable,  hence  they  are  generally  pre- 
sented in  solution  in  the  form  of  elixirs. 
The  alchemist  of  old  never  realized  that  the  yellow  metal  he 
sought  to  produce  would  be  utilized  many  centuries  after  him  in 
curing  the  liquor  habit.  At  the  present  time  gold  chloride,  gold 
and  sodium  chloride  and  gold  tribromide  are  constantly  employed 
in  medications  by  the  manufacturing  chemist. 
The  antiseptic  and  deodorant  properties  of  copper  oxide  have 
