Pharmaceutical Department.

BY T. E. JENKINS, PHARMACEUTIST.

WILD CHERRY LEAF WATER.-From a notice of the distilled water of the wild cherry leaf, by W. Procter, Jr., in the American Journal of Pharmacy, some practitioners have been induced to try the preparation in their own practice.

Not expecting much from the experiment, on account of the lateness of the season, and the small amount of activity probably existing in the leaf at this time of the year, we, however, gathered the leaves about the first of October, and after thoroughly bruising and mixing them with an equal weight of water, they were introduced into a still with properly arranged refrigerators, and after allowing the whole to stand twenty-four hours, the fluid was drawn over at a gentle heat until the amount passed equalled half the weight of the leaves employed.

The distilled water obtained was slightly milky, and possessed, in a great degree, the odor and taste of the wild cherry leaf. It gave on analysis .0238 per cent. of anhydrous hydrocyanic acid, which makes 84 grains of this distilled water, equal 1 grain of the acid hydrocyanic dilut: of the pharmacopia.

The second trial was made several days afterwards, and the resulting water contained a little less prussic acid per cent. than the first.

It has been used by several physicians, who speak of it favorably; and on account of the abundance and accessibility of this leaf, it should attract the attention of the pharmaceutist and doctor, since it yields a valuable and active medicament, in a pleasant and agreeable form, and may by proper attention be made to supply the place of the foreign "Aqua Lauro Cerasi," which is often factitious, and almost always of unknown strength, and consequently unreliable.

Next year we shall distil various lots of this water at different periods of growth of the foliage, and by a close examination of the product, be enabled to state with some degree of certainty the best time for submitting the leaves to distillation, so as to insure the most active and uniform preparation.

PRESERVING CIDER.-Let the cider from sour apples (from sound and selected fruit), ferment from one to three weeks, as the weather is warm or cool. When it has attained to lively fermentation, add to each gallon one-quarter of an ounce of sulphite of lime. Rub this powder with a little of the cider until it is thoroughly and uniformly mixed, and add it to the barrel of fermenting liquid. Agitate briskly for a few minutes, and let the cider settle. The fermentation will cease at once.

When, after a few days, the cider has become clear, draw off and bottle carefully, or remove the sediment and return to the original vessel. If loosely corked, or kept in a barrel on draught, it will retain its taste as a still cider. If preserved in bottles carefully corked, which is better, it will become a sparkling cider, and may be kept indefinitely long.

ASSAFETIDA AND ALOES IN ASCARIDES.-Dr. Nathaniel Smith states that, during a practice of more than forty years, he has never known assafoetida and aloes to fail of an immediate cure. He has usually employed the tincture, sometimes clearing out the bowels first by a smart purgative.

The finer qualities of gelatine are made from ivory raspings and the bones and tendons of animals.

COUNTER-POISONING.-An exchange paper says, that a man who was bitten by a copper-head snake, in Rockbridge county, Virginia, died in twenty-four hours. A quart of whisky was administered to him, and the attending physicians attributed his death to the remedy.

PATENT MEDICINES.-In the year ending the 31st March last, the duty on patent medicines in England amounted to 43,0901. 14s. 1 d.

Antiperiodic Properties of the Hypophosphite of Quinia. By ARCHIE B. Cook, M.D., Demonstrator of Anatomy, University of Louisville.

During the early part of September, I prescribed the hypophosphite of quinia in five cases of intermittent fever, in all of which the medicine acted promptly and efficiently. It was exhibited in pilular form, each pill containing two grains of the salt, with q. s. of the ext. gentian to make mass. In each case twenty grains were exhibited during the intermission, the quantity taken at each dose, and the intervals between the doses being regulated by the length of the intermission. In all the cases I endeavored to have the whole quantity taken, at least two hours previous to the access of the paroxysms. The same quantity (20 grs.), was exhibited on the next or second day following, as the case proved to be of the quotidian or tertian type; after which five grains were given daily for four or five days. From two to three weeks have now elapsed without a recurrence of chills in any of the cases treated.

Three of the patients were interrogated with reference to the head symptoms, and in no instance was any allusion made to those disagreeable sensations (as buzzing and singing in the ears), which so frequently follow the administration of the sulphate in even small doses.

I used the remedy uncombined, to test its properties as an individual antiperiodic. From what we know of the action of the sulphate of quinia, in combination with opium, or some of its various preparations, we would infer that a small quantity of the hypophosphite in similar combination, would interrupt the periodicity of the disease.

ANESTHESIA OF BEES.-Chloroform has been effectually used in removing honey from bee-hives in England and in this country.

The vapor of chloroform is blown into the hive until the bees are asleep, when they can be handled with safety, and in a few hours they are again as lively and busy as ever.

The cholera in Germany, the Lancet says, is still increasing. In some villages half the inhabitants have been carried off. Agricultural operations have been suspended, and the cattle let loose in the fields, there being no one to attend to them.

Editorial Department.

GLEANINGS FROM FOREIGN JOURNALS.

THE MAN MIDWIFE AND THE ROYAL ABORTION.--The same Tuesday night, May 12th, 1629, about twelve of the clock, did Queen Mary fall in labor of her first child, and was delivered at Greenwich about four of the clock next morning of a son, which lived about an hour, and was baptized by Dr. Wilson, one of the king's chaplains, and named Charles. He was born in the seveth month, near upon eight weeks before the due time, yet had nails and hair; and might, in all probability, have lived, had he not been turned in the womb, and so spoiled by the man midwife, in the very birth, whom the queen was forced to use for her own safety. This mischief happened to the queen and royal babe in her return from London the day foregoing by water, where she had been at mass; for the boat she was in shooting the bridge, was suddenly lifted up so high with the water, as, in the swift and sudden falling again thereof, she was disseated, and fell down on the bottom of the boat; by which it was conceived and dislocated in her womb.-Life of Sir Simon D'Ewes.

ACCOUCHEMENT OF MADAME DE BOURBON.-"Her labor was so difficult that it was feared it would be necessary to deliver the child by force. The child was, in fact, born dying. To reanimate it, it was placed in linen soaked in spirits of wine. No one knows how, but the spirits took fire. The women all rushed away terrified. The accoucheur, however, assisted well, and the child's life was saved. It is thought he will live." Thus wrote on August 5, 1772, Madame de Deffand, of the birth of a child, who in 1804 ended his career in the ditches of Vincennes, as Duc d'Enghien!

CURIOUS DENIAL OF AN ESTABLISHED FACT BY A GREAT AUTHORITY." For a long time," M. Trousseau tells the academy, "I have heard spoken of-I have myself heard-and have believed in a pleuritic friction sound; but now daily I lose my confidence in it. I search for it in the patients under my charge,

who are attacked with commencing pleurisy, and pleuro pneumonia; I beg my colleages at the Hotel Dieu to inform me when they themselves notice its presence in any of their pa tients; and now, during four years, I have only once heard a true bruit de frottement. This is what I find: In chronic catarrh, in pleurisy and pneumonia in its period of resolution, I find, under certain circumstances, the peculiar sound called bruit de frottement. In the greatest number of these cases, this bruit appears to me to be a sonorous rale, which ceases when the patient coughs." M. Trousseau appeals to his colleagues at the academy, but his colleagues on this point all differ from him.

TANNIN IN ALBUMINOUS ANASARCA.-The following are M. Garnier's conclusions:

1. Tannin in the dose of 3 to 3j. per diem cures anasarca or ædema when passively developed and coinciding with albuminous urine.

2. Its curative action is manifested by the abundant flow of urine, which gradually assumes its normal characters by transpiration, easy alvine evacuations, recovery of appetite, etc.

3. These signs of its action appear after the second day of its administration.

4. Given in solution of doses of from gr. iij. to gr. vij. at a time, it produces no disturbance of the digestive organs.

5. Its action seems to be primarily exerted on the fluids of the economy, coagulating and plastifying their albuminous principles. Its action on the solids seems to be consecutive, tonic, and astringent.-Med. Times and Gazette.

CANCER HOSPITAL.-The ceremony of laying the foundation stone of the new hospital for cancer at Brompton, nearly opposite the consumption hospital, was performed on May 30, by Miss Burdett Coutts, in the presence of a very numerous company, including the Bishop of London, the Ven. Archdeacon Sinclair, and several other clergymen and medical gentlemen.

TREATMENT OF NERVOUS HEADACHE BY THE HYDROCHLORATE OF AMMONIA. BY DR. A. BARRALIER.-The author recommends the hydrochlorate of ammonia as the best therapeutic agent in cases of nervous headache, and especially in idiopathic cephal algia and migraine. For upwards of three years he has employed it with success 202 times out of 259. The salt is administered in the form of potion: distilled or mint water, 60