Wine acts upon vegetable substances in nearly the same manner as diluted spirit, dissolving such of their proximate principles as can be taken up by water and alcohol when combined : hence it has been long used as a menstruum for extracting the active parts of medicinal vegetables; and the solutions thus formed have been denominated Medicated Wines. As a solvent, however, wine is liable to the objection of inequality of strength; and owing to the spontaneous decomposition which it undergoes from exposure to the air, it is still more objectionable, this change being likely to take place sooner when it is imbued with principles all of which tend to hasten the fermentative process. To remedy these disadvantages in this class of preparations, Parmentier has proposed 1, that instead of preparing medicated wines in the usual method, the alcoholic tinctures well prepared should be added to wine in given quantities : by which means, he contends, that the preparations are less nauseous, and, what is a still greater advantage, are always of a determinate strength. Two of the British Colleges still order medicated wines to be prepared after the old method; and when the vegetable products which are to be taken up are of an alkaline nature, as morphia, veratria, etc, it is still the best method.

They should be kept in very well corked bottles, and in a cool situation.

Vinum Aloes. Lond. Wine of Aloes

"Take of powdered aloes, two ounces; canella, powdered, four drachms; sherry wine, two pints. Macerate for fourteen days, frequently shaking, and then filter."

Dublin.

"Take of socotorine aloes, four ounces; canella alba, an ounce; Spanish white wine, three pints; proof spirit, a pound. Let the aloes and the canella, separately reduced to powder, be mixed together, and pour on them the wine mixed with the spirit; then digest for fourteen days with frequent agitation; and, lastly, strain the solution."

Vinum Aloes Socotorine, Edin. Wine of Socotorine Aloes.

"Take of socotorine aloes in powder, one ounce; lesser cardamom seeds, bruised, ginger root, bruised, of each a drachm; Spanish white wine, two pounds. Digest for seven days, shaking the mixture frequently, and strain."

Syn. Vin d'Aloe (F.), Vino Aloetico (I.).

Wine is an excellent solvent of aloes, and, therefore, these preparations contain all the virtues of the remedy in a concentrated state.

Medical properties and uses.-Wine of aloes is an excellent warm purgative and stomachic. It has long been employed with benefit in cold phlegmatic habits, in cases of paralysis, gout, dyspepsia, and chlorosis. The dose is from f 3j. to

1 Annales de Chimie, lii. 46.

f 3 ij. to act as a stomachic, and from f ss. to f ij. to produce purging.

Aloes are advantageously combined with alkalies; and in this state I have long been in the habit of employing a wine containing aloes and myrrh, in dyspepsia and chlorosis; and, also, in that affection of the mesenteric glands in children which produces a tumid and tense abdomen. The following is the formula I employ, which was copied, with some modification, from a very old pharmacopoeia, which accidentally fell into my hands; but of the date of which I have unfortunately preserved no memorandum :-

Sodae subcarbonatis iij. Ammoniae carbonatis 3ivss. Myrrhae 3vj. Aloes extracti 3vj. Vini albi (sherry, Anglice) f xxiv. Macera per dies septem, et cola. The dose is from one fluid drachm to half a fluid ounce.