Pilulæ saponacea were composed of soap, licorice, and opium, and the doubt which must have presented itself to many minds as to the reason for selecting soap as an excipient, receives this explanation in a note by the committee. "Matthews's pill was originally composed upon this fantastical conceit: that soap of tartar was endued with an unaccountable faculty of correcting the noxious qualities of all vegetable poisons, and converting them into medicines of uncommon efficacy."

We now take leave of the "Pharmacopoeia Reformata" of 1744, believing that it is but one of many old books on pharmacy deserving our notice, and from which we may glean, without being open to the charge

"Of dropping buckets into empty wells,
And growing old in drawing nothing up."

R. R.

Lecture Note Book of the late Mr. Richard Freshfield Reynolds. "Manuscript." Being "Extracts from a Course of Chemical Lectures delivered by Dr. Bostock and Mr. Aikin, in the winter of 1819." Delivered at Guy's Hospital.

At the end of the book are notes of a "second course," beginning Feb. 6th, 1820.

The notes are written with care and neatness.

A Complete Extemporaneous Dispensatory; or, the Method of Prescribing, Compounding, and Exhibiting Extemporaneous Medicines: In which is contained at large, the Doctrine of all the various Forms, both External and Internal, which are now in Use; Exemplified with many accurate Specimens of each. Translated from the Latin Original of the Learned Dr. H. D. Gaubius, Present Professor of Physick and Chemistry in the University of Leyden. London: Printed for J. Carter at the Black-Moor's Head, opposite the Royal Exchange. MDCCXLI.

Syllabus of a Course of Chemical Lectures read at Guy's Hospital. By William Babbington. M.D., F.R.S., Alexander Marcet, M.D., F.R.S., Physicians to the Hospital, and William Allen, F.R.S. and F.L.S. London: Printed by William Phillips, George Yard, Lombard Street. 1816. Pp. 145.

This book was the text-book of the late Mr. Richard Freshfield

Reynolds, whilst studying at Guy's Hospital. In a pocket inside the cover of the book are two perpetual tickets for two courses of lectures, one on Experimental Philosophy, by Mr. Millington, 1819; and the other on Chemistry, by Dr. Bostock and Mr. Aikin, in 1819.

Pharmacopoeia Londinensis; or, The New London Dispensatory. In Six Books. Translated into English for the Public Good, and fitted to the whole Art of Healing. Illustrated with the Preparations, Virtues, and Uses of all Simple Medicaments, Vegetable, Animal, and Mineral; of all the Compounds, both Internal and External and of all the Chymical Preparations now in Use. Together with some choice Medicines added by the Author. As also, The Praxis of Chymistry, as it's now exercised, fitted to the meanest capacity. The Eighth Edition, Corrected and Amended. By William Salmon, Professor of Physick, at the Great House, near Black-Fryars Stairs. London: Printed by J. Dawks, for G. Conyers, J. and B. Sprint, in Little Britain, and sold by T. Varnam and J. Osborn, at the Oxford Arms in Lombard Street. MDCCXVI. Pp. 796.

Arranged in six books:-I. Of simple Vegetable Mendicants.II. Of Animals.-III. Of Minerals.-IV. Of Compounds Internal. -V. Of Compounds External.-VI. The Practice of Chymistry.

Book ii. is full of quaint matter, as the following will show :"The powdered hair of a living man good for jaundice, etc :1. The ashes stops bleeding. An oil distilled from it with honey, causes the hair to grow again on bald places. 2. The nails in 'pouder' or infusion they cause vomiting, great sickness at stomach, and giddiness in the head. The powder also cures dropsy."

" Of the Pouder of the parings, 3i; Wine a Pint, digest till it turn to slime, filter, and add spirit of wine, 3ii; of which give from 3i to zi to the uses aforesaid."

“To cure consumption take the hair and nails of the patient, cut them small, and put them in a Hole in the Root of a Cherry Tree, and then stop it with Clay." Gout is cured by giving the same to birds in a roasted egg, or put into the hole bored in the body of an oak or plum-tree, or mixed with wax and introduced into the body of a live crab.

Spittle cures venomous bites, pimples, etc. Human blood drank hot cures epilepsies, according to some, but says the author, "it is very dangerous."

Here is a prescription!

66

"B The blood of a young man in the spring time, digest 40 days, then distil in Ashes or Sand, by an Alembick, so you will have Water and Oil; rectify the water in B.M., the Oil in a retort, drawing them off nine or ten times, till it be of a red colour."

It is cited as a cure for consumptions-dose 3i.

Man's blood made in the form of a “balsam" "is of strange force in the gout."

Of mummies there are five kinds: 1. Artificial. 2. Sun dried (found in the desert). 3. Egyptian (embalmed). 4.

5. Artificial.

Arabian.

An artificial mummy is made thus: "Take the carcase of a young man (some say red hair'd), not dying of a disease but killed; let it lie twenty-four hours in clear water in the air, cut the Flesh in pieces, to which add Powder of Myrrh and a little Aloes. Imbibe it twentyfour hours in Spirit of Wine and Turpentine, take it out, hang it up for twelve hours; imbibe again for twenty-four hours in fresh spirit, then hang up the pieces in a dry air, and in a shady place, so will they dry and not stink."

Aqua divina consists of a person violently killed, cut to pieces, and distilled in a retort! It has a magnetic power!!

Preparations of bones, skulls, brains mixed with lavender, cowslip, sage, mistletoe, etc., form a “noble antepileptic ;" and hearts are mentioned. The preparations of beasts, too, are numerous. Amongst other strange things, distilled soot has a wonderful curative power. J. C.

Pharmacopoeia Officinalis et Extemporanea; or, a Complete English Dispensatory, in Two Parts. Theoretic and Practical. Part I., in Two Books.-Book I. Of the Definition, Subject, General Intentions, Media, Instruments, and Operations of Pharmacy.—Book II. Of the Distribution into proper Classes, General Nature, and Medicinal Virtues, etc., of Simples. Part II., In Five Books.— Book I. Of the Preparation of Simples.—Book II. of Saline Preparations. Book III. Of Metalline Preparations.-Book IV. of Officinal Compositions; containing all the Prescriptions of the London and Edinburgh Pharmacopoeias, according to the last Alterations thereof; together with those of the Author's, and the present Practice, which claim any notice.-Book V. Of Extemporaneous Prescriptions; which are therein disposed into proper

1782.

Classes according to their curative Intentions. By John Quincy, M.D. The Fifteenth Edition, much enlarged and corrected. London: Printed for T. Longman, in Paternoster Row. In this well-known book will be found "ambergris, crabs' eyes, ivory and hartshorn shavings, crabs' claws, pearls, ruby, saphire, lapis lazuli, vipers, snails, earthworms, millepedes, stercus porcinum, skinks, Oriental and Occidental Bezoars, hermodactyls, mandrake, houseleek, dodder, Adeps anseris, A. camis, A. hominis, A. viperæ, A. ursi, and also formulæ for their preparation." J. C.

.

Free Thoughts on Quacks and their Medicines, occasioned by the Death of Dr. Goldsmith and Mr. Scawen; or, a candid and ingenuous Inquiry into the Merits and Dangers imputed to Advertised Remedies: In which, an investigation of the nature and origin of their composition has been attempted; and the degree of confidence they deserve, ascertained. Wherein, also, have been occasionally interspersed some few animadversions tending to defend Minerals in general, and exculpate Mercury and Antimony in particular, from the ill-judged and ill-grounded aspersions thrown against them; by proving the superiority of the productions of the Mineral, over those of the Vegetable Kingdom. Dedicated to the Legislature in general, or, both Houses of Parliament. Interest Reipublicæ, cognosi malos. Cicero. London: Printed for J. Wilkie, No. 71, St. Paul's Churchyard, and Mr. Davenhill, No. 30, Cornhill. MDCCLXXVI.

Pharmacopoeia Collegii Regalis Londoni. Londoni, Impensis Tho. Newcomb, Tho. Basset, Job. Wright, et Ric. Chiswell. MDCLXXVII.

The Distiller of London. Compiled and set forth by the Special Licence and Command of the King's Most Excellent Majesty; For the Sole Use of the Company of Distillers of London. And by them to be duly Observed and Practised. London: Printed by Thomas Hughes, Stationer, in Broad Street; for the Company of Distillers. MDCCXXV.

Pharmaceutice Rationalis. Sive Diatriba De Medicamentorum Operationibus in Humano Copore. Auctore Tho. Willis, M.D. in Univ.

Oxon. Prof. Sedleiano, nec non Coll. Med. Lond. et Societ. Reg. Socio. Editio Tertia. Oxoniæ E. Theatro Sheldoniano, Prostant apud Ric. Davis. 1679.

Part I. Tractatus De Simplicium Medicamentorum facultatibus. A Treatise of the Nature and Qualities of such Simples as are most frequently used in Medicines, both Purging and others. Methodically handled, for the benefit of those that understand not the Latine Tongue. To which is added many Compound Medicines for Diseases incident to Mankind. As also two Alphabetical Tables, very necessary for the Reader. Together with the Explanation of all hard words, or Termes of Art, whereby the Vulgar may the better understand it. By Robert Pemel, Practitioner in Physick, at Cranebrooke, in Kent. Turpis est calamitas Medicamento purgante dato hominem occidere.-Hippoc. de Med. Purg., fol. 98. London: Printed by M. Simmons, for Philemon Simmons, at the Guilded Lyon, in St. Paul's Church Yard. 1652. Sq. 8vo.

The preface, Sept. 16, 1651, is dedicated "To the kinde Reader." It begins: "Courteous Reader, as the knowledge of diseases is most necessary and usefull for such as take upon them the noble art of physick, so no lesse profitable is the knowledge of simple medicines and their nature. For it is most true, he onely cures well that rightly knows; he that rightly knows diseases and their causes, as also the vertue of simple medicines, he cures best."

Then follows, list of authors made use of; alphabetical table of simples; explanation of hard words, "whereby the vulgar may the better understand it;" list of works on sale by the publisher, ana list of errata. The matter is arranged thus for an example :

De Absynthio. Of wormwood. The names; the temperament,"It is hot in the second degree, and dry in the third, very bitter and cleansing, yet binding and strengthening." The duration," It will keep good a year." The inward use; the manner of administering in different complaints. An infusion made with "wormwood, fumiterry, of each a handfull, raisons of the sun, two ounces, and a gentle decoction in three pints of posset drinke to two pints, or two and a halfe," and strained, is said to be good against melancholy. "Of such things as are made of wormwood we have wormwood water, juice, spirit, wine, extract, conserve, syrupe, trosses, salt of wormwood, chymicall oyle, and oyle by infusion." Last follows the dose. Amongst the simples we have:—agaricus, ammoniacum, socotrine aloes, aristolochia longa and rotunda, assafoetida, safflower seeds,