A*MM^*S3nn"}       Pharmacy  Hundred  Years  Ago. 
193 
year.  Among  the  periodicals  we  note  TrommsdorfFs  Journal  dcr 
Pharmizie  and  Buchner's  Repertorium.  As  to  books,  over  eighty 
titles  are  given. 
Turning  to  the  problems  under  discussion  it  is  plain  to  see 
that  1 820- 1 82 1  were  alkaloidal  years.  Sertiirner's  discovery  of 
morphine,  the  first  isolated  plant  base  (1816),  had  stimulated 
research  in  that  direction  and  as  a  result  we  find  in  the  periodicals 
of  a  century  ago,  first  of  all,  the  classic  paper  of  Pelletier  and 
Caventou  on  quinine,  a  dissertation  covering  forty-eight  printed 
pages;  a  paper  from  the  same  authors  on  veratrine,  and  one  from 
them  on  strychnine ;  Meissner's  article  on  sabadilline ;  Brandes  on 
daturine,  on  delphine  and  delphinine  and  on  atropine ;  Pelletier  on 
veratrine;  Oerstedt  (son  of  a  Danish  apothecary,  the  great  elec- 
trician and  chemist),  on  piperine ;  Desfosses  on  solanine ;  Thomsen 
on  the  combustion  assay  of  morphine,  and  Brandt  and  Meissner 
on  atropine.  As  novelties  in  the  way  of  elements  we  note  cadmium, 
thorium,  lithium  and  selenium.  As  new  drugs,  are  described 
Asarum  Canadensis  (used  then  in  the  United  States  for  tetanus) 
guarana,  arrow-root,  Scutellaria  (used  then  in  the  United  States 
for  hydrophobia  lactucarium,  Borneo  camphor,  chiretta  and 
pareira  brava.  Then  there  are  given,  among  other  analysis,  that 
of  krameria  by  Gmelin ;  of  ambergris  by  Pelletier  and  Caventou ; 
of  Tonquin  musk  by  Blondeau  and  Guibourt ;  of  cubeb  by  Pelletier ; 
of  Fucus  vesiculosus  by  Coindet  (pointing  out  that  its  medical 
action  in  goiter  is  due  to  its  iodine  content)  ;  of  serpentaria  by 
Chevallier;  of  saffron  by  Henry  (noting  presence  of  polychroit)  ; 
of  santonica  by  Boullon-LaGrange  (describing  its  volatile  oil)  ;  of 
cochineal  by  Pelletier  and  Caventou  (giving  method  of  preparing 
carmine ;  of  yellow  wax  by  Buchholz  and  Brandes ;  of  colocynth  and 
star  anise  by  Meissner ;  of  myrrh  by  Brandes :  and  of  saffron  by 
Aschoff.  An  unexpected  paper  is  one  on  the  "Atech-Gab"  of 
Baku,  in  which  the  words  "petrol"  and  "napthe"  are  used,  and  in 
which  it  is  stated  that  the  "petrol"  is  used  by  the  poorer  classes 
of  Persians  as  a  lamp  oil.  Some  forty  years  later  (1859)  Penn- 
sylvania petroleum  became  the  great  commodity  which  has  made 
it  world-famous  ever  since. 
Of  papers  published  by  Americans  we  find  four ;  one  by  Spald- 
ing (the  Scutellaria  article  cited  above),  one  by  Hare  on  a  theory 
of  galvanism,  one  by  Rafinesque  on  atmospheric  dust,  and  one  by 
