388 
ANALYSIS  OP  HYOSCYAMIN,  ETC. 
In  conclusion,  it  may  be  remarked  that  the  bark  has  been  used 
and  recommended  in  South  America  as  a  febrifuge  and  aromatic 
tonic,  and  the  nut  is  used  as  a  substitute  for  the  nutmeg.  In 
fact,  Lt.  Herndon,  in  his  "  Exploration  of  the  Valley  of  the 
Amazon,"  has  given  it  as  an  article  of  commerce  exported  from 
the  town  of  Barra  on  the  Rio  Negro,  under  the  name  of  Puxiri, 
or  Brazilian  Nutmeg,  an  appellation  found  to  apply  in  Rio  de 
Janeiro  by  Dr.  Ruschenberger.  The  oil  may  be  found  useful  in 
rheumatism  and  in  diseases  requiring  an  aromatic  stimulant. 
EXAMINATION  OF  THE   PREPARATIONS  MADE  BY  THE 
AMERICAN  CHEMICAL  INSTITUTE,  NEW  YORK. 
By  E.  S.  Wayne,  Cincinnati. 
An  association  styled  the  American  Chemical  Institute,  has 
recently  been  established  in  the  city  of  New  York,  ostensibly 
for  the  purpose  of  manufacturing  the  concentrated  remedies 
(resinoids  and  oleo-resins)  so  extensively  used  at  present  by  the 
physicians  of  the  Eclectic  school,  in  their  purity,  and  in  a  scien- 
tific manner. 
This  institution  has  produced  an  extensive  list  of  the  above 
mentioned  remedies,  differing  in  their  appearance  from  those  of 
any  other  manufacturer,  and  the  process  by  which  the  chemists 
of  this  Institution  have  produced  them,  has  not  yet  been  made 
public. 
They  have  also  published  a  work  entitled,  »  Positive  Medical 
Agents,  being  a  treatise  on  the  New  Alkaloid,  Resinoid  and 
Concentrated  Preparations  of  Indigenous  and  Foreign  Medicinal 
Plants,"  which  treats  of  the  therapeutic  value  of  the  above 
mentioned  remedies,  and  contains  clinic  reports,  showing  the 
success  which  has  attended  their  administration  at  their  hands, 
and  recommending  to  the  profession  the  use  of  the  remedies 
made  by  them  as  the  most  reliable  of  the  kind,  giving  as  reasons 
for  this  preference,  that  the  most  scientific  methods  are  used  in 
their  extraction,  and  none  but  the  most  scientific  chemists 
and  pharmaceutists  engaged  in  their  manufacture. 
These  preparations  are  so  entirely  different  in  their  appear- 
ance, taste  and  odor  from  preparations  of  the  same  name,  and 
from  similar  substances,  made  by  others,  that  no  little  curiosity 
