556 
Sal  Catharticum  Amarum.  \  AmA-  J°ur;  ^rra- 
(     August,  1921. 
from  what  happened  about  fifty  years  later  (about  1760),  when  a 
certain  Ingram,  a  surgeon,  advertised  real  Epsom  salts,  obtained  by 
evaporating  the  Epsom  water,  at  as  much  as  five  shillings  the  ounce. 
How  it  came  about  that  the  Epsom  salt  came  to  be  confused  with 
the  sal  mirabile  of  Glauber  (ho die,  Glauber's  salts),  and  how  it  came 
to  be  made  from  bittern  at  the  salt  works  of  Lymington,  near  South- 
ampton, and  at  Newcastle,  may  be  read  at  considerable  length  in  Dr. 
James'  "New  Universal  English  Dispensatory"  or  in  his  "Medicinal 
Dictionary."  The  production  at  Epsom  was  given  up  quite  early  in 
the  eighteenth  century.  Neumann  says  he  visited  Epsom  in  17 13  and 
"found  no  person  there  who  could  give  any  information  about  the 
preparation  of  the  salt,"  and  he  goes  on  to  say  that  "I  inspissated 
myself  an  hundred  quarts  of  the  water,  but  scarcely  obtained  from 
them  half  an  ounce  of  saline  matter."  The  production  of  Epsom 
salts  from  bittern  continued  until  Wm.  Henry,  of  Manchester,  took 
out  a  patent,  in  1816,  for  the  production  of  it  from  dolomite. 
To  return  to  Grew's  tract — the  second  part  deals,  as  has  already 
been  mentioned,  with  the  Use  of  the  Bitter  Purging  Salt,  and  in  the 
second  chapter  is  a  formula  which  must  be  regarded  as  the  parent  of 
Haustus  Niger,  although  it  is  only  in  the  form  of  a  so-called  Apozem, 
and  would  be  taken  in  rather  larger  doses  than  the  regulation  3iss.  or 
3ii.  The  formula  reads  in  the  translation: 
Take  Spring  Water  four  Pints,  Mace  a  Dram,  Senna  three 
Drams,  boil  them  gently  and  add  of  the  Bitter  Purging  Salt  an 
Ounce,  Flakey-Manna  an  Ounce  and  half,  or  two  Ounces,  and 
strain  it. 
The  final  chapter  deals  with  the  Abuse  of  Bitter  Waters  and  their 
Salts. 
It  might  be  interesting  to  compare  the  work  of  Nehemiah  Grew 
and  Stephen  Hales,  inasmuch  as  they  both  concerned  themselves 
with  the  anatomy  and  physiology  of  plants,  and  both  attempted  to 
find  a  means  of  making  sea  water  into  fresh  water.  Grew's  publica- 
tion on  "Sea  Water  made  Fresh"  appeared  in  1684,  and  went  into 
about  ten  English  editions  as  well  as  into  French  and  Italian  ones. 
This  anticipated  Hales'  book  by  about  half  a  century.  Grew's  link 
with  pharmacy,  however,  is  his  discovery  of  the  purgative  salt  of  the 
Epsom  Spring. 
