MISCELLANY. 
259 
with water and alcohol of 80°, adding small portions of absolute alcohol, 
from time to time, as long as any bitter taste is communicated. The 
tincture is then filtered, evaporated in a water bath, and the dry residue 
treated with hot water. The filtered solution is of a wine yellow colour, 
and may be decolourized by means of animal charcoal ; it is then to be 
gently evaporated, when the quassin will separate in fine prismatic crystals. 
The watery extract affords no crystals, but merely a yellow deliquescent 
mass. Quassin is soluble in water; more so in alcohol ; but is scarcely 
acted upon by ether. On diluting the alcoholic solution, the quassin is 
obtained in the form of a woody mass. The aqueous solution affords a 
white precipitate with tannin and corrosive sublimate. 
Records of Gen. Science. 
Chorea. — The following mixture is said to have proved successful in 
the treatment of this disease, but the quantity of the cyanide is too great 
for most cases ; it would be safer to commence with half the quantity, 
and increase it gradually: 
R. Tincture of castoreum gss. 
Musk, 
Nit. potass. aa gr. iv. 
Cyanide potassium gr. ij. 
To be mixed with eight ounces of orange flower water, and taken in 
spoonful doses, in twenty-four hours. Bull, de Therapeut. 
Mercurial ointment. Var Mons states that mercurial ointment can be 
very expeditiously prepared by adding a few drops of Balsamum sulpkuris 
terebinthinatum to the mercury and fatty body used. The balsam alluded 
to is made by dissolving one part of flowers of sulphur in four parts essence 
of turpentine, on a sand bath. 
Jim. Journ. Med* Sci. and Bee. Gen. Sci. 
Volatile oil of mustard. — M. Faure in France and M. Hesse in Ger- 
many, have called the attention of chemists to the preparation of the vola- 
tile oil of mustard. They were both led to the same results; they both 
found that if bruised mustard seed be placed in a still with cold water, 
that much more essential oil was obtained than if hot water or steam had 
been employed at once. M. Hesse even advises that the seed should be 
macerated with cold water for several hours before the distillation is com- 
menced. But hot water or steam are not the only agents that prevent the 
developement of the essential oil, for it has been shown that acids, alcohol, 
&c. exercise the same influence. 
These facts are of some importance in a therapeutic point of view. In 
fact, it has been shown that sinapisms, prepared with cold water, are 
much more active than those made with hot water or vinegar. The 
researches of MM. Faure and Hesse have explained this curious anomaly 
