Scilla. Squill. 'The bulb, sliced and dried, of Urginea Scilla (Scilla maritima); Lin. Syst., Hexandria monogynia; growing on the southern coasts of Europe bordering on the Mediterranean.

Description. The recent bulb is pear-shaped, varying in size from a man's fist upwards, and weighing from half a pound to four pounds. It is made of a series of scales overlapping one another; the outer ones are thin and membranous, brownish red or white; the internal thicker, fleshy, white, and juicy. As met with in the shops, it is generally in small, thin transparent pieces, of a white or slight yellow colour, consisting of transverse sections of the bulb.

Prop. & Comp. Squill has a disagreeably bitter taste; the pieces are brittle and easily pulverable if very dry, but if exposed readily recovering moisture and flexibility. Squill yields its active constituents to water, acetic acid, and alcohol. From the most recent analysis, it appears to contain an acrid resin, having very powerful medicinal properties; also a very bitter principle, Scilli-tine, together with sugar, mucilage, and citrate of lime, which is found in the form of acicular crystals in the parenchyma of the bulb.

Of. Prep. Pilula Scillae Composita. Compound Squill Pill. (Squill in fine powder, one ounce and a quarter; ginger, ammoniac, hard soap, each one ounce; treacle by weight, two ounces, or a sufficiency.) [Squill, sixty grains; ginger, ammoniac, each one hundred and twenty grains, all in fine powder; soap, one hundred and eighty grains. The powders are mixed, and then beaten with syrup to form a mass, to be divided into one hundred and twenty pills. U. S.]

Syrupus Scilla. Syrup of Squill. (Squill, bruised, two ounces and a half; dilute acetic acid, twenty fluid ounces; refined sugar, two pounds; proof spirit, one fluid ounce and a half.) The squill is first digested in the acetic acid, the spirit added, and then the solution filtered, and the sugar dissolved in with the aid of heat. The product should weigh three pounds two ounces, and should have the specific gravity 1.330. [Vinegar of squill, a pint; sugar, twenty-four troy ounces. Dissolve the sugar with the aid of heat and strain while hot. U. S.]

[Acetum Scillae. Vinegar of Squill. U. S. Four troy ounces of powdered squill are percolated with dilute acetic acid so as to obtain two pints of filtered liquor.]

[Syrupus Scillae Compositus. Compound Syrup of Squill. U. S. Squill, seneka, each four troy ounces; tartrate of antimony and potassa, forty-eight grains; sugar, forty-two troy ounces. Three pints of tincture are obtained from the mixed seneka and squill by maceration and percolation; to this, reduced by boiling and evaporation to a pint, six fluid ounces of boiling water. The sugar is dissolved in the filtered fluid, and the solution heated and strained. The tartrate of antimony and potassa is dissolved in the hot solution, and sufficient boiling water added through the strainer to make it measure three pints.]

Tinctura Scillae. Tincture of Squill. (Squill, bruised, two ounces and a half, proof spirit, one pint. Prepared by maceration and percolation.)

Therapeutics. Squill acts as a stimulant expectorant and diuretic, and in larger doses produces vomiting and purging. It increases the secretions of the bronchial mucous membrane, and also aids the expectoration of mucus, when abundant and viscid. Its stimulating and acrid properties render it inadmissible in cases of an active inflammatory nature. As a diuretic, it is generally given in combination with a mercurial. It is seldom given as an emetic, as it produces distressing nausea, and sometimes hyperca-tharsis. As an expectorant, ipecacuanha and ammoniacum are frequently conjoined with it.

Dose. Of the powdered squills, 1 gr. to 2 gr. or more; of pilula scillae comp., 5 gr. to 10 gr.; of syrupus scilla3 (a substitute for oxymel scillae), 1/2 fl. drm. to 1 1/2 fl. drm.; of tinctura scillae, 10 min. to 20 min.

Aloe Barbadensis. Barbadoes Aloes. Inspissated juice of the cut leaf of Aloe vulgaris, the common aloe, growing in the East and West Indies; imported from Barbadoes.

Aloe Socotrina. Socotrine Aloes. The juice of the cut leaf of uncertain species of aloes, hardened in the air; usually procured from Socotra. [The inspissated juice of the leaves of Aloe Socotrina. U S.]

[Aloe Capensis. Cape Aloes. The inspissated juice of the leaves of Aloe Spicata, and of other species of aloes. U. S.]

Description. Barbadoes aloes is usually seen in the gourds in which it is collected and dried; it has a dull appearance, and occurs in yellowish-brown masses, very opaque even in thin layers, with an odour which is extremely nauseous, especially when breathed upon; the taste is intensely bitter; it breaks with a dull conchoidal fracture; when powdered, it has a dull olive-green colour; it dissolves almost entirely in proof spirit, and during solution exhibits under the microscope numerous crystals; it is the produce of Aloe vulgaris, and probably of other species also.

Socotrine Aloes has a bright garnet-red colour; breaks with a vitreous fracture, and possesses considerable transparency; the odour is fruity, and by no means disagreeable, the taste very bitter; the colour of the powder is bright orange-yellow, it dissolves entirely in proof spirit, and during solution exhibits under the microscope numerous minute crystals. The author has found that some specimens of transparent Socotrine aloes fail to show crystals under the microscope; the cause of this is easily seen from what is stated below concerning the aloe juice.

Within the last few years, a large sample of liquid aloes has been imported from the coasts of the Red Sea, stated to be the produce of the plant yielding true Socotrine aloes; this liquid, which has the consistence of treacle, is at first nearly opaque, but gives rise to a deposit; the upper portion then becomes transparent, and the opaque sediment, under the microscope, is found to consist of myriads of prismatic crystals. When liquid aloes is dried at a very low temperature, as in the sun, an opaque mass, crystalline in structure, and not unlike Hepatic aloes, is produced; when, however, heat is employed, the crystals are dissolved, and a transparent variety, similar to very transparent Socotrine aloes, results. Semi-opaque Socotrine, Hepatic, and Barbadoes aloes will also, if heated in thin layers, lose their crystalline structure, and become transparent.