THE 
AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY. 
JULY,    185  8. 
ON  THE  SOLVENT  POWERS  OF  SIMPLE  SYRUP. 
By  Joseph  Howland  Bill,  M.  D.,  U.  S.  A. 
For  many  and  varied  purposes,  sugar  has  long  been  used  in 
medicine.  To  the  pharmaceutist  it  is  of  the  greatest  use,  as  is 
proved  by  the  long  array  of  officinal  syrups,  as  well  as  the 
numerous  preparations  into  which  sugar  enters  as  an  excipient 
or  corrigent.  The  chemist  also  uses  sugar  to  protect  from  oxida- 
tion bodies  easily  oxidized.  The  physician  uses  sugar  as  a 
remedy  in  scrofulosis,  as  a  soother  of  that  tickling  cough  at- 
tending deficiency  of  mucus  in  the  air  passages,  in  the  form  of 
honey  as  a  topical  application  in  scarlatina  anginosa,  and  also 
to  protect  burns,  wounds,  &c,  from  the  action  of  the  air,  as  well 
as  to  heal  those  wounds  by  inducing  a  local  eutrophy  of  cell 
action.  For  if  we  admit  that  sugar  is  a  general  eutrophic  in 
scrofulosis,  modifying  cell  action  just  as  ol.  morrhuse  does,  why 
not  admit  that  it  is  capable  of,  and  that  it  does  produce,  analo- 
gous changes  in  unhealthy  solutions  of  continuity?  We  have  so 
often  seen  the  efficacy  of  sugar  applied  to  wounds,  when  sub- 
stances which  merely  excluded  the  air  did  no  good,  that  we  are 
persuaded  that  sugar  is  capable  of  local  as  well  as  general 
eutrophy. 
We  wish,  however,  in  this  paper  to  call  attention,  in  the  first 
place,  to  the  specific  solvent  powers  possessed  by  syrup  as  com- 
pared with  water. 
1.  The  writer  had  occasion,  some  time  ago,  to  make  the  "  lime 
syrup,"  used  in  Peligot's  modification  of  Will  and  Varrentrap's 
method  for  the  estimation  of  nitrogen.  Seeing  the  strength  and 
permanency  of  the  solution  so  made,  the  writer  at  that  time 
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