Dr. Pereira's Elements of materia medica and therapeutics : abridged and adapted for the use of medicine and pharmaceutical practitioners and students and comprising all of the medicines of the British Pharmacopœia, with such others as are frequently ordered in prescriptions or required by the physician / edited by Robert Bently and Theophilus Redwood.

  • Jonathan Pereira
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Pereira's Elements of materia medica and therapeutics : abridged and adapted for the use of medicine and pharmaceutical practitioners and students and comprising all of the medicines of the British Pharmacopœia, with such others as are frequently ordered in prescriptions or required by the physician / edited by Robert Bently and Theophilus Redwood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1069/1132 (page 1037)
    honey, confection of pepper, confection of scammony, confection of turpentine, and oxymel of squill. [§ Oxymel. Oxymel. Take of Clarified Honey . . .40 ounces. Acetic Acid . . . .5 fluid ounces. Distilled Water .... 5 fluid ounces. Liquefy the honey by heat, and mix with it the acetic acid and water. Dose.—1 to 2 fluid drachms.] It is employed as a detergent and pectoral. It is frequently added . to gargles ; but is more commonly used as an expectorant in slight colds and coughs. Diffused through barley-water, it forms an agreeable refrigerant drink in febrile and inflammatory complaints. It is sometimes used as a vehicle for other medicines. [§ Cera Flava. Yellow Wax. The prepared honeycomb of the hive bee, Apis mellifica, Linn.] Secretion of Bees' Wax.—Yellow wax is secreted in glands placed on the ventral scales of the bee. With this wax the bees construct the comb, the cells of which are hexagonal with angular bottoms. The substance called propolis is collected by the bees from the buds of trees. It is of a resinous nature, and is used for lining the cells of a new comb, stopping crevices, &c. Preparation.—The comb, from which the honey has been allowed to drip, is first subjected to pressure. It is then melted in water, by which means the impurities subside, and the wax is poured into moulds and left to cool. General Characters.—Yellow wax has a remarkable, peculiar, and agreeable honey-like odour; its colour is more or less yellow, but varying in degree ; it is firm and breaks with a granular fracture; its specific gravity varies from 0*960 to 0965. It is not unctuous to the touch ; does not melt under 140° ; yields nothing to cold rectified spirit, but is entirely soluble in oil of turpentine. Boiling water in which it has been agitated, when cooled, is not rendered blue by iodine. Adulterations.—It is said to be sometimes adulterated with suet, which gives it a fatty and disagreeable taste. Resin may be recog- nised by its solubility in cold alcohol; bean- or pea-meal, by its insolubility in oil of turpentine. Pharmaceutical Uses.—Yellow wax is an ingredient in five of the official ointments and seven of the plasters.