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FLUID  EXTRACT  OF  HYDRANGEA. 
until  reduced  to  small  fragments  or  very  coarse  powder;  they  are 
then  moistened  with  water  in  a  covered  vessel,  and  heated  until 
the  tissue  of  the  pieces  has  become  soft  and  can  be  bruised  into 
a  pulpy  mass.  This  is  then  mixed  with  twice  its  bulk  of  alcohol, 
.835,  and  allowed  to  macerate  in  a  close  vessel  in  a  warm  place  for 
24  hours,  and  then  treated  by  displacement  until  8  or  10  times 
the  weight  of  the  drug  is  obtained.  The  alcohol  is  then  distilled 
off,  and  the  residue  heated  in  a  water  bath  until  reduced  to  the 
consistence  of  a  soft  extract. 
Treated  in  this  way,  the  beans  of  St.  Ignatius  yield  about  ten 
per  cent  of  extract,  having  a  brown  color,  peculiar  heavy  odor, 
and  an  intensely  bitter  taste.  The  proportion  of  extract  obtained 
is  smaller,  (and  is  contaminated  with  fixed  oil,  like  the  officinal 
extract  of  nux  vomica),  if  the  seeds  in  powder  are  treated  directly 
with  alcohol,  and  thus  made  it  is  probably  more  active ;  yet,  as 
these  beans  contain  1.8  per  cent,  of  strychnia,  and  nux  vomica  but 
.3  to  .4  per  cent.,  this  extract  must  be  considerably  more  active 
than  the  officinal  extract  of  nux  vomica.  The  pills  are  directed  to 
be  made  by  incorporating  30  grains  of  the  extract,  with  ten  grains 
of  gum  arabic  in  powder,  and  dividing  the  mass  into  forty  pills  ; 
one  of  which  is  to  be  taken  three  times  a  day.  We  are  informed 
that  some  apothecaries  substitute  extract  of  nux  vomica  when 
called  upon  for  that  of  Ignatia  amara— a  practice  not  to  be  jus- 
tified, however  analogous  the  preparations  may  be. 
FLUID  EXTRACT  OF  HYDRANGEA. 
By  Edward  Parrish. 
The  root  of  Hydrangea  arborescens,  an  indigenous  plant 
found  in  many  parts  of  the  United  States,  was  introduced  to  the 
notice  of  the  medical  profession  by  Dr.  T.  W.  Butler,  of  Burling- 
ton, N.  J.,  through  the  New  Jersey  Medical  Reporter. 
Dr.  Butler  states  that  his  father,  who  is  connected  with  the 
mission  to  the  Cherokees,  learned  of  them  the  merits  of  this 
plant  in  the  treatment  of  gravel  and  stone,  and  has  himself  em- 
ployed it,  in  the  course  of  an  extensive  practice,  among  a  people 
peculiarly  subject  to  these  complaints,  for  many  years.  He  con- 
siders it  as  a  most  valuable  medicine,  and  possessed,  perhaps,  of 
