SE + À

D + ak RÜIITEÉE

This dose weighs about 19 gram and is oversufficient for several cures. The powder ought to be preserved in a hermetically elosed bottle, as the borneol is very volatile. The whole costs me here in Chinese apothecary’s shops about one and à half guilder (2sb. 6d:), whilst Si Ma-In asks an exorbitant price for his preparation.

Part of this powder, which had been lying in a room in which a case of diphtheritis was treated by it, proved to have remained sterile after examination by Dr. Erskmax.

If any of my colleagues should wish to make experiments with

this powder out of Batavia, I would advise him to have it prepared

in one of the larger apothecary’s shops, as offering the best chance against falsified or stale ingredients.

For this may happen in smaller Chinese apothecary’s shops, having only à limited sale of medicines, the more so as there is à total absence of control over the Chinese apothecary’s shops by the authorities.

Of course, the same point has to be observed with regard to the recipes for the hereafter to be mentioned species of decocta.

For Batavia 1 can recommand the apothecary’s shop of Loa Hian-iao ( LE BE ME) of the designation I Chhun Tong (f$ FE #7) at Tongkangan, the proprietor of which is in possession of à copy of my recipe, and of whose conscientiousness I feel

assured.

I have to remark, besides, that it is necessary in other shops to be personally present at the preparation of the recipes. Keh- Chinese (Hakkamen), especially, set to work very slovenly. I once had my recipe prepared by such an apothecary. The pearls were weighed in my presence and pulverized in a brass mortar. — The roots of coptis and liquorice, already prepared as a fine powder, were unobjectionable, as also the cinnabar, borneol and bezoar; but the prunes were first weighed and then carbonized in a coarse fashion, throwing them into the hearth-fire and taking them out when they were redhot, when these burning fruits were covered with a cup on the floor.

This modus operandi was not according to the prescription, giving, of course, a difference in the weight, as the prescribed dose refers to the carbonized and not to the fresh prunes; not to speak of the unclean way of preparing them.

The borax which, as will be shown in the pharmacographical

part of this paper, ought to be calcined very carefully, and then

forms a snow-white porous mass, was heated very slovenly in the above-mentioned shop. À lump of #ingkal (borax) was weighed and then held in the hearth-fire upon a shovel till the crystalline fluid was evaporated and the borax had changed to a spongious mass,

tinged greyish by the ashes and coals.

The second part of the Chinese treatment consists in administring a decoctum of some herbs, the prescription of which differs according to the stage in which the decoctum is given.

During the first stage, when, generally, a rather violent fever occurs, and the diphtherical exsudation is still spreading, I prescribed, in accordance with the prescription of Si Ma In, the fol-

lowing decoctum.

Rerrre N°. 8 (Herss).

HS | à + & [Li