132 
ON  LIQUOK  AND  EXTKACTUM  TARAXACL 
not  made,  owing  to  the  hasty  manner  in  which  the  matter  was 
attended  to ;  but  so  far  as  thej  went  they  indicated  a  smaller 
presence  of  the  endochrome.  This  indeed  is  sufficiently  ex- 
pressed in  the  description  of  it  as  a  juice  wanting  the  thickness 
which  distinguishes  the  other. 
I  believe  the  cause  of  this  variation  may  be  thus  correctly  ex- 
plained :— 
While  the  root  is  fresh,  and  before  the  cessation  of  vital  ac- 
tion has  produced  a  change  in  the  juices,  the  cells  containing  the 
endochrome  are  more  easily  ruptured,  and  the  endochrome  itself 
is  more  perfectly  suspended  in  the  juices,  and  more  freelj  yielded 
to  expression. 
It  is  also  possible  that  a  period  of  delay  may  allow  a  process 
of  fermentation  to  be  imitated,  which  may  explain  the  greater 
disposition  of  the  more  fluid  juice  to  become  sour  during  evapo- 
ration at  a  moderate  temperature. 
The  fluid  "Liquors  of  Taraxacum,"  which  I  believe  are  gene- 
rally made  by  a  certain  evaporation  of  the  juice  and  addition  of 
spirit,  with  subsequent  filtration  to  separate  the  starchy  matter, 
universally,  so  far  as  I  know,  abound  in  sugar. 
We  have  now  to  consider  the  influence,  in  a  pharmaceutical 
point  of  view,  of  the  presence  of  this  large  proportion  of  en- 
dochrome in  the  one  case,  and  of  sugar  in  the  other, 
In  the  first  place,  I  maintain  that  the  endochrome  gives  rise 
to  a  very  fallacious  estimate  of  the  preparation  in  which  it  oc- 
curs. We  are  prone  to  consider  that  the  great  aim  is  to  achieve 
a  pale  drab-colored  fluid,  which  shall  give  a  milky  mixture  with 
water,  the  first  of  these  features  being  in  fact  an  indication  of 
the  absence  of  any  large  proportion  of  that  soluble  matter  which 
we  assume  to  carry  the  medicinal  property  of  the  taraxacum., 
and  the  second,  of  the  copious  presence  of  inert  matter. 
In  the  case  of  the  fluid  liquors  we  find  a  portion  of  the  en- 
dochrome has  been  converted  into  its  other  inert  modification  of 
glucose,  and  still  contaminates  the  product,  and  this  presence  is 
generally  held  to  be  objectionable,  but  probably  the  greatest  ob- 
jection to  this,  as  to  the  other,  is,  that  they  are  not  sufficiently 
concentrated  to  make  the  usually  prescribed  doses  of  any  avail. 
All  that  has  been  said  of  the  two  types  of  liquid  taraxacum 
