MISCELLANY. 
177 
be used at all, or if used, should be given some considerable time after 
the quinine. He states that tincture of cinchona bark, which is frequent- j 
ly given in combination with sulphate of quinine, produces a very copi- 
ous precipitate of quinine, and that compound infusion of orange peel is 
liable to the same objection. 
PharmaceuticalJournal and Transactions, April, 1842. 
On the Tindura Opii Ammoniata of the Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia, 
By Mr. J. H. Gilbert, Nottingham. — Being a student in the laboratory 
of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary during the summer of 1839, it was occa- 
sionally my duty to dispense the tinctura opii ammoniata — a preparation, 
the apparently unchemical composition of which led me to suspect, that, 
as far as the opium employed is concerned, it could be of no utility; it 
being well known that ammonia acts as a precipitant to morphia. It is 
true, that a great excess of that alkali will, in some solutions of the salts 
of morphia, either prevent its precipitation, or redissolve it when precipi- 
tated. In order, therefore, to ascertain the fact in the present instance, 
I submitted several separate portions of the tincture to examination at Dr. 
Thomson's laboratory, where also I was a student. 
Two ounces were first boiled in a flask ; the magnesian precipitate col- 
lected and boiled with alcohol; the alcoholic solution filtered while hot, 
and set aside in a warm situation to evaporate slowly : no crystals were 
deposited, and the residual matter, when tested, was found to contain no 
morphia. 
Four ounces were next treated in a manner varying from the above. 
The liquid, previous to further treatment, was saturated with dilute acid ; 
for when, as before stated, morphia has been held in solution by an ex- 
cess of ammonia, I have found, that after expelling the greater part of 
that excess by gentle heat, and then saturating with dilute acid, a salt 
may be obtained, from the solution of which the morphia may be separat- 
ed by the usual means. In the present case, however, no morphia was 
detected. 
Having thus failed to detect that principle in the filtered tincture, the 
dregs of a known quantity were macerated for some time in water acidu- 
lated with muiiatic acid ; the filtered liquid, after being digested with 
animal charcoal, was sufficiently concentrated on a water-bath, and set 
aside, when a large quantity of crystals of muriate of morphia was de- 
posited. A part of these were treated with ammonia, and the morphia 
tested in a separate state with a neutral solution of perchloride of iron; 
and part, while in the state of muriate, was tested with iodic acid in the 
usual manner. As the dregs employed were not exhausted, nor the 
mother-liquor treated with ammonia, an accurate quantitative result could 
