Note 610 — PHARMACOLOGIA. (continued 6)

Sal Prunelle. Nitre, when coloured purple like a plum, has been long esteemed in Germany as a powerful medicine, under this name.

M. Chevreul supposes the urinous taste attributed to fixed alkaline bases not to belong to these substances, but to the ammonia, which is set at liberty by their action on the ammoniacal salts contained in the saliva; the proofs of which, he says, may be derived from the facts that the sensation disappears upon pressing the nostrils; and that the same odour is perceived when we smell to a mixture of recent saliva and fixed alkali, made in a small glass or porcelain capsule. (See my work on Medical Chemistry, § 8.)