Note 595 — PHARMACOLOGIA. (continued 6)

Godbold’s Vegetable Balsam. In the specification of the Patent for this nostrum forty-two different vegetables are directed to be distilled “for the purpose of extracting their essences, which are to be preserved separately and apart from each other, in syrups, and are to be mixed with the following gums and drugs, viz. Gum Dragon, Gum Guaiacum, Gum Arabic, and Gum Canada, these being dissolved in double distilled vinegar, with a quantity of Storax dissolved in Spirits of Wine and Oil of Cinnamon. It is to be bottled off, and kept three years before it is fit to be administered for the Cure of Consumption, or any Asthmatic Complaint.” It is hardly necessary to observe, that no such directions ever are, or indeed ever could be followed; in short the “Balsam” is little else than simple oxymel. It is, however, not a little curious that amongst the forty-two plants enumerated, there should be several that would on distillation yield Prussic acid, such as the Bays. We wonder that this accidental circumstance has not been noticed, and turned to account, by some of those worthy disciples of Esculapius who live by the credulity of mankind, and, as Falstaff expresses it, “Turn diseases to a commodity.”