THE  AMERICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY. 
JUNE,  1880. 
KOUMYS. 
By  L.  Wolff,  M.D. 
Read  at  the  Pharmaceutical  Meetings  May  i  %th. 
When,  at  the  last  pharmaceutical  meeting,  the  question  arose,  how 
to  prepare  a  good  and  reliable  article  of  koumys  by  a  rational  method, 
I  stated  that  my  experience  with  it  had  long  been  of  an  unsatisfactory 
nature,  but,  after  continued  experiments,  I  had  been  able  to  obtain 
very  good  results. 
There  had  appeared  in  the  Journal  at  various  times  in  1874  and 
1875  directions  and  formulae  for  the  preparation  of  this  milk  wine,  so 
much  praised  as  a  nutrient  in  wasting  diseases,  and  justly  much  employed 
of  late  years  in  this  country  ;  but  none  of  them  served  me  towards 
preparing  a  koumys  at  all  corresponding  to  that  of  the  Kirghizians  on 
the  steppes  of  Asiatic  Russia. 
A  very  interesting  article  in  the  ''American  Journal  of  Pharmacy," 
1874,  p.  570,  from  the  Pharmaceutical  Journal  and  T'ransactions,'' 
gives  a  very  excellent  description  of  the  koumys  cure,  and  the  prepa 
ration  of  koumys,  as  practiced  by  the  Tartars  on  their  native  steppes, 
but  it  leaves  the  distant  pharmacist  at  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  where  no 
Tartar  mares  nor  mares'  milk  can  be  had,  at  a  loss  of  how  to  repro- 
duce it  in  this  country. 
H.  and  N.  Schultze,  of  Berlin  ("Amer.  Jour.  Pharm,,'*  1875,  page 
68),  direct  an  addition  of  sugar  of  milk  to  cows'  milk,  and  its  fermen- 
tation by  brewers'  yeast  ;  any  one  that  has  tried  has  probably  suc- 
ceeded as  little  in  making  koumys  according  to  their  directions  as  I 
have.  Schwalbe  in  the  same  article  contributed  by  Dr.  A.  W.  Miller 
uses  condensed  milk,  dissolved  in  water,  to  which  he  adds  lactic  acid 
and  rum,  puts  it  in  a  Liebig's  bottle,  and  charges  the  whole  with  car- 
bonic acid  gas,  and  sets  it  in  a  warm  room  until  fit  for  use. 
In  another  article  of  the  Journal,  1875,  page  261,  the  Russian 
method  of  fermenting  mares'  milk  by  a  home-made  yeast  is  quoted, 
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