THE 
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY, 
OCTOBER, 1849. 
ART. LXVTI. — OBSERVATION'S OX COLLODION. 
By Edward Parrish. 
More than a year has elapsed since jointly with my 
friend W. W. D. Livermore, then an assistant in my esta- 
blishment, I published an article in this Journal (vol. xiv., 
p. 1S1) upon the Ethereal Solution of Prepared Cotton, which 
I believe was the first essay on the pharmaceutical relations 
of this new and curious compound that appeared. The ar- 
ticle had just been introduced to the notice of the profession 
in Philadelphia by Dr. Maynard, of Boston, one of the 
claimants for the honor of first applying it to surgical use. 
Up to that time, all that was generally known of its compo- 
sition was that it was a solution in ether of fulminating 
cotton, prepared by the action of nitric and sulphuric acids 
on cotton. 
A very few experiments convinced us that the ordinary 
commercial gun cotton manufactured by the patentees was 
nearly always insoluble, and that the directions for pre- 
paring gun cotton for explosive purposes were not those 
best adapted to obtain a good article for solution. After 
several trials we succeeded in producing an article identi- 
cal in its properties with that of Maynard & Noyes, the 
agents of Dr, Maynard, but the formula we used, and which 
we then published, did not always give a satisfactory 
result; sometimes the cotton was found to be nearly or 
quite insoluble, at other times it dissolved rapidlv and com- 
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