ON THE PREPARATIONS OF SENEKA. 251 
its acrimony. The Hamburg Pharmacopoeia directs Iceland 
moss, liquorice is often used, and slippery elm, and flaxseed 
are occasionally prescribed. 
In the 15th volume of this Journal, the writer offered a 
formula for the preparation of an extract of seneka, which 
consisted in exhausting the root with diluted alcohol and eva- 
porating the tincture carefully to the consistence of an extract; 
and proposed its employment in medicine, both in pill and as 
a ready means of making the decoction. This extract dis- 
solves almost entirely in water, and affords a more eligible 
preparation than that by the officinal formula ; and by its 
means the preparation can be dispensed at once. It may be 
as well to observe that the displacement of seneka is effected 
with greater rapidity by employing a menstruum composed of 
two parts of water and one of alcohol; the maceration may be 
continued longer in warm weather without fear of change, 
and is more readily evaporated. 
The syrup of seneka when properly prepared is a very 
efficient preparation, one pint embodying the strength of four 
ounces of the root. The framers of the United States Phar- 
macopoeia in adopting the method of displacement as a means 
of exhausting the activity of medicinal substances, have almost 
invariably given the old formula, at the same time, as a cau- 
tionary measure, founded on the presumed want of knowledge 
on the part of the apothecaries of this country, of the proper 
application of that principle. This, as a progressive move- 
ment* was doubtless a wise precaution, but it is to be hoped 
that the experience which shall have been acquired in its em- 
ployment by the next revision of that work will justify the 
unconditional adoption of that useful process in every case 
where it is proper, and its rejection otherwise. 
The syrup prepared by the second formula of the Pharma- 
copoeia is in all respects preferable to that by the first, or boil- 
ing process. The latter directs four ounces of bruised seneka 
to be boiled in a pint of water until the menstruum is reduced 
