301 
SPIRIT  US  iETIIERIS  NITRICI. 
The  officinal  U.  S.  P.  preparation  is  at  best  probably  too  strong 
in  alcohol  for  the  fall  medicinal  effect  of  the  hyponitrous  ether, 
having  probably  less  ether  in  it  by  1  per  cent,  than  the  fraraers 
of  the  Pharmacopoeia  purposed  it  should  have  from  the  formula. 
Hence  the  physician  who  predicates  any  part  of  the  character 
of  his  profession  upon  the  diaphoretic,  diuretic,  or  febrifuge 
effects  of  this  commercial  preparation  too  often  brings  a  discredit 
upon  his  science  and  art,  which  more  justly  belong  to  the  prepa- 
ration he  employs.  His  patient  distrusts  his  skill,  and  instinct- 
ively seeks  for  better  results  from  some  of  the  various  pretended 
"systems"  or  quackeries  with  which  he  is  surrounded. 
It  is  not  probable  that  bad  colocynth  or  bad  scammony  are 
ever  to  be  found  in  "  Brandreth's  Pills,"  but  I  have  good  reason 
to  believe  that  the  seed  from  the  colocynth  of  which  Brandreth's 
Pills  are  made,  is  separately  powdered  and  sold,  and  that  from 
such  cheap  varieties  of  powdered  colocynth  much  of  the  extract 
is  made  upon  which  regular  practitioners  must  rely. 
In  view  of  such  illustrations,  is  it  surprising  that  charlatanism 
nourishes,  or  that  medical  men  are  to  be  found  in  co-partnership, 
or  in  competition  with  it  ?  The  patient  often  doubts  the  quality 
of  his  physician  or  of  his  physician's  science,  but  rarely  reflects 
upon  the  tendency  of  commercial  competition  and  a  blunted 
moral  perception  upon  the  means  on  which  physicians  must  rely. 
It  is  said  of  Sweet  Spirit  of  Nitre,  as  of  Hoffman's  anodyne 
and  other  preparations,  that  the  commercial  article  is  so  very 
different  from  that  contemplated  in  the  materia  medica,  that  it 
may  be  well  to  examine  into  the  expediency  of  so  modifying  the 
Pharmacopoeia  as  to  produce  the  commercial  article,  because  the 
curative  effects  or  character  of  the  article  as  a  remedial  agent 
must  belong  to  it  as  found  in  commerce,  rather  than  as  produced 
by  the  officinal  formula,  since  by  far  the  greater  part  used  in 
medicine  is  obtained  through  commerce.  To  all  such  reasoning 
and  expediency,  and  to  the  increasing  disposition  to  subsidize 
every  science  and  art  to  the  making  of  money  alone,  I  offer  my 
hearty  and  unqualified  opposition  ;  for  it  is  mainly  thus  that 
the  physician  is  losing  one  by  one  his  valuable  curative  agents, 
and  acquiring  for  his  profession  an  uncertainty  which  does  not 
belong  to  it,  but  which  engenders  a  popular  distrust  as  in- 
jurious to  that  profession  as  it  is  beneficial  to  charlatanism. 
U.  S.  Naval  Laboratory,  Neiv  York,  May  1856. 
