i 
PHARMACEUTICAL NOTICES. 
263 
plan, and surely the trouble of writing two extra lines on a 
prescription should not be considered a hardship when the 
life of a patient is at stake." 
These remarks have an American application, and, it 
may be said, a Philadelphia one, as almost every apothe- 
cary will vouch for, and give evidence of, on his prescription 
file, and they have been considered a fit preface to the fol- 
lowing observations : 
We have but one tincture of aconite officinal in the 
United States Pharmacopoeia, whilst two, if not three, are in 
use. The officinal tincture is made by treating four ounces 
of the leaves of aconite with two pints of diluted alcohol. 
Another tincture, (that of Dr. Turnbull) is made by digest- 
ing ifcj. of aconite root in ibiss. of alcohol ; whilst a third tinc- 
ture contains the root in the proportion of one part to four 
parts of alcohol. The high price of aconitia is well known. 
The concentrated tincture above noticed is used as a substi- 
tute for it, and when carefully prepared is a very good one- 
It is chiefly applied externally, although occasionally pre- 
scribed as an internal medicine. Now the object of this 
notice is to call attention to the fact that tincture of aconite 
is prescribed under the names of " Tinctura Aconiti fortis," 
" Tinctura Aconiti Radicis," and sometimes as simply 
"Tinctura Aconiti," when the strong preparation is in- 
tended . Dr. Keating of this city states, that in doses of three 
drops repeated three or four times, it has produced tempo- 
rary paralysis of the lower extremities, whilst thirty or forty 
drops of the officinal tincture are given at a dose. The 
consequence of substituting the strong for the weak tincture 
internally, would be fearful, and calls for the serious atten- 
tion of physicians and apothecaries. 
In reference to the concentrated tincture made Ibj. to 
Ojss. the results obtained by M. Personne with other sub- 
stances, leads to the belief that the root is far from being 
exhausted, and that a tincture made of half the quantity of 
Toot is equally strong. It is a point worthy of examination. 
