the cough. The air tubes of the lungs were evidently much loaded with mucus. Desirous of giving the vapour a fair trial in this case, which was more closely allied to the class of pulmonary affections, in which it appeared most unequivocally applicable, Mr. W. commenced the operation, and his patient inhaled the vapour, diluted as in the two former instances, from the 14th of August to the 23d of September, regularly; then every other day, and finally ceased on the 28th of October. The first eight or ten inhalations produced powerful action of the lungs; and the quantity of mucus expectorated exceeded belief; and it gradually subsided, whilst the lungs seemed to expand, under the influence of the new atmosphere. The patient went voluntarily, during the whole period, as he used to say, "to get rid of the phlegm." It is remarkable that the child gained flesh whilst under this treatment. Not a single medicine was exhibited to him, Mr. W. being determined to witness the unassisted effects of the vapour. He is now quite well; and when he has any "wheezing," as he terms it, a dose of tar vapour seems effectually to remove the cause.

On the result of these experiments, Mr. W. observes, "It may, I presume, be inferred, from the cases here adduced, that the efficacy of carburetted hydrogen, produced in the manner I have detailed, possesses decided advantages in chronic and in recent cases of pulionic affections, before the accession of active inflammatory symptoms. In the few cases that have come under my observation, wherein I have applied it, immediate relief and ultimate benefit have accrued to the patient. The only instance of failure I have experienced, was in the second attack of my own child: there, I candidly confess, my former success rendered me blind to the existence of active symptoms, until I perceived them increased by the stimulating nature of the application. Yet, after the inflammatory action was removed, the effect of the vapour was certainly beneficial: so that, it appears, in cases where the lungs are under the influence of inflammation, the exhibition of this remedy is improper; but in chronic pulmonary affections, and also subsequent to the existence of increased arterial action, I have no doubt of the superior efficacy of this gaseous compound. I will not presume to enter into any thing like a rationale of its qualities; I am satisfied with offering facts, with such comments merely as arise from a due consideration of the importance of the subject; feeling, as I do, that many children may be yet saved from premature death, by the adoption of this simple, yet powerful remedy, even by the parents themselves. Should I be so fortunate as to stimulate, by my humble efforts, one individual to a successful application of the Vapour of Barbadoes Tar, my object will be attained, and I shall rest satisfied with the result of this communication. The mode of administering the vapour I adopted in the case of Master Wallis, and my own child, which I have since found exceedingly applicable to infants, is simply this.-A vessel of tin, resembling a coffee-pot, contains the tar (the size is immaterial, twelve inches by four will suffice in the generality of cases); a conical tube issuing from the top; a corresponding opening on the opposite side, to allow a draft, that the vapour may ascend. The iron is what may be obtained at any ironmonger's; laundresses use it for what they term the Italian Iron. This heater,

being attached to a firm iron rod, terminating in a wooden handle, is altogether eighteen inches in length. The cover or lid of the pot is made to slide on this rod; so that when the heater is made hot, upon being immersed into the tar, the cover fits on and prevents any escape of vapour. The tube of the pot is then kept to the nostril, at the proper distance, that the vapour may be inspired.

Care must be taken that the heater be not red hot, in which case ignition of the tar, attended by an explosion, will happen, and may be of serious consequence. This happened once with me: I therefore caution those who use the remedy, to observe the degree of heat ere the heater be immersed in the tar: neglect of this observance on my part occasioned ignition, and burnt the eyelashes and eyebrows of my little patient Wallis."

The following is a delineation of the instrument:

A. The cover, which fits into the top when the heater is put into the tar.

B. The wooden handle of the heater.

c. The situation of the opening, above the size of half-a-crown, an inch and a half.

D. The iron rod of the heater.

E. The heater.

F. The height of the tar, beyond which it ought not to rise?

G. The tube, which is eighteen inches long, for the convenience of guiding the apparatus in conveying the vapour.

The inclination of the tube from the plane of the cover may be at pleasure.

Mr. W. observes, that "the exhibition of the vapour never produced vomiting, whenever I have applied it, unless the bronchiæ were loaded

with mucus and in either case, viz. whether there existed mucus or not, the remedy invariably operated as an anodyne, producing sleep."

THE HOP.– No accurate analysis of the hop having been published, Dr. Ives of New York has made some experiments, with a view to ascertain its component parts, and particularly its medicinal character. On removing a quantity of dried hops from a bag, he discovered at the bottom a fine yellow powder, which he rendered pure by passing it through a fine sieve. This substance, which has been mistaken for pollen, is peculiar to the female hop, and the Doctor thinks is secreted by the nectaria. It has been more correctly appreciated by makers of malt liquor, than by men professing a more scientific knowledge of the culture, properties, and use of the hop. The Doctor has not been able to find any notice of this product in books, and not having been able to learn from his botanical friends that any appropriate term has been given to it, he has given it the name Lupulin. This article we noticed in the year 1809, in the third volume of the Medical and Surgical Spectator, page 298, under the name of the farina of the hop. The following is an extract from our communication: "The farina of the hop may be obtained of hop merchants, who collect it from the floor of their warehouses. It is generally mixed with other matter, from which it may be separated by means of a hair sieve. Of the hop driers it may be procured in considerable quantity, and generally very pure, as they collect it from the bottom of the kilns in which the hops are dried." In the subsequent number, page 362, we recommend the tincture of the farina of the hop, as superior to that of the London Pharmacopoeia. On speaking of the fine bitter and aromatic qualities of the farina to a Botanist, he told us that it was the male seed of the hop, and we have therefore recommended the tincture of the hop to be made with the seed, in our translation of the London Pharmacopoeia. To our remarks we suspect Dr. Ives is indebted, for his knowledge of the article to which he has given the name of Lupulin. Having never prescribed the farina or tincture alone, we cannot speak of their medicinal properties.

From the numerous experiments Dr. Ives has made, it appears that the farina, or lupulin, as he terms it, contains a very "subtile aroma, which is yielded to water and rectified spirit, and rapidly dissipated by a boiling heat; that no essential oil can be detected by distillation on any portion of the hop.-That the lupulin contains an extractive matter, which is soluble only in water. That it contains Tannin, Gallic acid, and a bitter principle, which are soluble in proof spirit. That it contains resin, which is dissolved by rectified spirit, by ether, and by wax. That the aromatic and bitter properties of the lupulin are more readily and completely extracted by rectified spirit than by water, and much sooner by both when they are hot than when they are cold."

The Dr. thinks he has satisfactorily ascertained, that the “medicinal virtues of the hop reside exclusively in the lupulin; that the leaves contain a nauseous extractive matter, which is imparted to water and to rectified spirit, and which, instead of adding to the bitter and aromatic flavor of the lupulin, partially neutralizes it." The obvious inference from these results is, that the lupulin is the only part of the hop essential to economical purposes; an inference so little anticipated

by the Doctor, that he considered it an important subject of inquiry, whether that part of the plant has been duly estimated by brewers whether it has been regarded by writers as preferable to the leaves ?— and if so, what impediment, or what consideration has prevented its being separated from the chaff. On making inquiry of several brewers in the city of New York, the Doctor ascertained that there was about one in three who considered the lupulin useful in common with other parts of the plant. It was known to all that hops were used principally for preserving beer from becoming acid, but neither practical brewers, nor scientific writers on brewing, appear to have noticed this substance. By some of the former it is regarded as useless. When at one brewery, the Doctor asked for some of the yellow powder found at the bottom of the hop bags, he was told that they could find but little there, having a few days ago thrown away near half a bushel of it.

The Doctor resolved to ascertain, if possible, the proportion of lupulin in the merchantable hop, and also whether it could be completely and readily separated from the leaves. Accordingly, six pounds of pressed hops were taken from the centre of a bag containing some hundred pounds, and exposed to a gentle heat till perfectly dry. They were then put into a light bag, and by rubbing and sifting, fourteen ounces of the pure powder were separated, with very little labour. On the vir tues of lupulin, as a medicine, the Doctor is very brief, in consequence of his intention of giving it a further trial. The hop has been held in great estimation by some practitioners of eminence, as a remedy for irritative indigestion, or indigestion arising from morbid excitement of the stomach; to which gouty subjects, gluttons, and inebriates are liable. In France it is used as a tonic medicine, in cases of indigestion and scrofula. In America it has been most valued for its narcotic powers; and in cases of nervous excitement and mania, where opium is inadmissible, it often succeeds in procuring sleep. The most common preparation is a saturated tincture of the strobiles. To this preparation there are two important objections; firstly, to give a dose capable of producing sleep, the quantity of rectified spirits is necessarily so great as to do injury to the patient; secondly, when given in large doses, it frequently produces nausea, and sometimes vomiting. The first of these objections, Dr. Ives observes, requires no proof; and the second, he says, is confirmed by his own observation, and by the experiments of Dr. Bryorley, in a dissertation on the hop. The last effect Dr. Ives attributes to the extractive matter in the leaves (strobiles), for he has never seen it produced by the lupulin. He has prescribed the lupulin in substance, the infusion, decoction, the tincture, and the extract. Its aromatic and bitter qualities being imparted to boiling water, the infusion is an eligible preparation as a tonic and stomachic; but in cases of irritative indigestion, and to allay nervous irritability, the Doctor has found the tincture of the lupulin to succeed best. As to the extract and decoction, they possess only the bitter quality, the aroma being dissipated during boiling. The virtues of the tincture are aromatic, tonic, and sedative, and it is, says the Doctor, the only article in which these properties are combined. America, like other countries, abounds with vegetable bitters and tonics, many of which are more powerful than the

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hop, but there is none, in the Doctor's opinion, "which can be so properly denominated a stomachic."

In the "family of symptomatic diseases, which are the consequence of a deranged state of the stomach and bowels," the Doctor has found the tincture extremely beneficial. It frequently induces sleep, and allays excessive nervous irritation, without occasioning costiveness, or impairing, like opium, the tone of the stomach, and thereby increasing the primary affection. As an anodyne, he observes, it will be inefficient, compared with opium. The saturated tincture of the lupulin, in the dose of forty to eighty drops, will induce sleep with as much certainty as opium, in cases of long watching from nervous irritability, but the same cannot be said of its efficacy in allaying pain. By boiling the hop in wort, for the purpose of extracting its preserving properties, the aroma, in which its peculiar grateful flavour resides, as well as its most powerful quality in preserving malt liquor in a vinous state, is dissipated. LETTUCE OPIUM.-A few years have now elapsed since Professor Duncan, of Edinburgh, recommended to the attention of medical practitioners the inspissated white juice of the common garden lettuce. In a paper first published in the Memoirs of the Caledonian Horticultural Society, about ten years ago, he described what he considered the best method of preparing it, and he gave to the article thus prepared the name of Lactucarium, that there might be no similarity in sound between the appellation given to the extract, and to that which is obtained from the white poppy, known by the name of opium, a name derived from its being the coagulum of a milky juice; for although the inspissated milky juice obtained from the lettuce, the lettuce opium, as it might be called, possesses many of those medicinal properties which have been known to exist in the milky juice of the poppy, particularly in procuring sleep, yet it differs from the opium obtained from the poppy in several particulars; and from these differences lactucarium can be exhibited with success, in many cases where opium is altogether inadmissible.

Since the publication of the Professor's first observations on the lettuce opium, the attention of many others has been turned to this article. In the same work in which his observations were published, several interesting communications have appeared respecting it, particularly from Mr. John Henderson of Brechin, Mr. Archibald Gorrie of Rait, and others. To these gentlemen the public are indebted for improved methods of collecting it from the plant: but of all those who have attended to this subject no one has done so much as Mr. John Young, surgeon, of Edinburgh. As a proof of his success, a gold medal, offered by the Horticultural Society, has been awarded to him for preparing the greatest quantity of the article for sale.

The preparations of the lettuce opium recommended by the Professor are the tincture and lozenges; the latter of which we have noticed as a remedy for cough in an early number. He observes, that practitioners have sometimes been disappointed in obtaining the effects expected from this medicine, by adulterated articles having been sold under the name of lactucarium, or lettuce opium, and still oftener, from substitutes being employed, poppy opium being introduced where lettuce opium was prescribed, and thus exhibited to patients with whom

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