FLUID EXTRACTS OF RHUBARB AND VALERIAN. 183 
powder; the well known nauseonsness of which renders its 
avoidance often desirable. 
In reflecting on the subject it occurred that a preparation 
might be made which should be liquid, nearly as concen- 
trated as the drug itself, and sufficiently permanent to resist 
the temperature of our warm season. 
In carrying out this idea, it has proved successful, and a 
preparation afforded containing the strength of sixty grains 
in a teaspoonful. Several advantages will result from this 
degree of concentration, besides that of permanency. It 
may be incorporated with liquid mixtures with the greatest 
facility, its syrupy consistence rendering it fit for suspending 
calomel or blue mass, and other insoluble substances, when 
these are prescribed with it ; by dilution with simple syrup 
any required strength of simple syrup of Rhubarb can be 
prepared extemporaneously; and admixed with the fluid 
extract of senna, when the two cathartics are required to- 
gether, it affords an excellent mode of administration. 
In the following formula there has been no addition of 
aromatics to mask the taste,the sugar necessary for preserva- 
tion being the only adjuvant. The active part of rhubarb 
is ceded equally to water and diluted alcohol, but the latter 
has been chosen as the menstruum because it enables the 
process to be conducted by displacement, and requires less 
heat and time in the evaporation. 
Another reason is that whilst this menstruum extracts all 
the active part, it rejects a considerable amount of mucilage, 
which renders the preparation less viscid. If a watery men- 
struum is preferred, the best mode of extracting the root is 
to reduce it to small fragments or shavings, free from dust ; 
then macerate it in twice its weight of water for twenty-four 
hours and strongly express. The residue is again mace- 
rated in the same quantity of water, and again expressed, 
until three times the weight of the root is obtained. 
