Observations on the preparation of yellow bark and other medicines / by Richard Battley.

  • Battley, Richard.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the preparation of yellow bark and other medicines / by Richard Battley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    me, to have the effect of separating and securing, nearly the whole of the medicinal properties of the Bark; since by the second maceration, lime, in union with some of the acid, a little colouring matter and other properties of the Bark, in very minute degree, were the only results ; and on boiling the residuum in water, little was ob- tained besides starch. It is sufficiently evident then, that unless the starch contain medicinal virtue, the first maceration leaves little besides a portion of the vegetable acid to which that property can be attributed ; and with regard to this acid, sufficient is procured, to hold in solution, the quinine, resin, extractive, colouring matter and wax, together with the tannin; and the importance attaching to this process may be con- sidered as fully established,- when I add, that the acid is a ready solvent of quinine, even without the assistance of heat, the usual solvent being dilute sulphuric acid at the boiling point, and that the bitter procured by the first, is far more intense than that produced by the latter; one being the compound prepared in the .great laboratory of nature, the other artificial. I have, for some time past, received repeated assurances from high medical • authority, of the superiority of the medicine prepared by cold infusion and subsequent condensation, but I have only recently ascertained the high sol- vent power of this acid. SENNA. To double its weight of cold dis- tilled water, imparted nearly half its own weight. The analysis of this liquor was as follows ; viz. Gum, Resin, Extractive, Lime, Alumina, Magnesia, together with,— Sulphate of Potash, and Muriate of Potash. It has appeared to me, as the result of much observation, that the object to be desired in the preparation of Senna, for medicinal purposes, is, to retain the whole of these properties in their native combination, and for this purpose the great tendency to separa- tion and precipitation of that, which I apprehend to be the most effective property of the drug, namely the resin, is particularly to be guarded against; for if that effect or consequence be allowed, the medicine ceases to be of value. I find that these constituents are secured with the least disturbance, by this method of cold infusion, and that the medicine so procured may be made to preserve its efficacy for a great length of time. Jheld in solution by a ve \ getable acid, and yielding Caroma in a high degree the acid also existing ii 3 the infusion in a free state.