r with alcohol diluted with one part of water
to three of alcohol, corking tightly, and letting it stand about
fourteen days, when the tincture may be filtered or poured off from the
drugs, and will be ready for use. Prepared in this imperfect manner,
they rill be found to be much more reliable than any of the fluid
extracts found in the drug-stores. An excess of the crude drug should be
used in preparing the tincture to insure a perfect saturation of the
alcohol with its active principles.

HOMOEOPATHIC TINCTURES. The tinctures prepared by several of the German
and French pharmaceutists, and called by them "Mother Tinctures," to
distinguish them from the dilutions made therefrom, we have found to be
very reliable, so much superior to any similar preparations made in this
country that we purchase from them all we use of Pulsatilla,
Staphisagria, Drosera and several others. They are prepared with great
care from the green, crude material, and although high in price, when
compared with other tinctures, yet the greater certainty of action which
we secure in our prescriptions by their employment more than repays for
the expense and trouble in procuring them, for of what account is
expense to the true physician when _life_ may depend upon the virtue of
the agent he employs?

INFUSIONS. These are generally made by adding one-half ounce of the
crude medicine to a pint of water, which should be closely covered, kept
warm, and used as directed. Flowers, leaves, barks, and roots become
impaired by age, and it is necessary to increase or diminish the dose
according to the strength of the article employed.

DECOCTIONS. The difference between a decoction and an infusion is, that
the plant or substance is boiled in the production of the former, in
order to obtain its soluble, medicinal qualities. Cover the vessel
containing the ingredients, thus confining the vapor, and shutting out
the atmospheric air which sometimes impairs the active principles and
their medicinal qualities. The ordinary mode of preparing a decoction is
to use one ounce of the plant, root, bark, flower, or substance to a
pint of water. The dose internally varies from a tablespoonful to one
ounce.

ALTERATIVES.

Alteratives are a class of medicines which in some inexplicable manner,
gradually change certain morbid actions of the system, and establish a
healthy condition instead. They stimulate the vital processes to renewed
activity, and arouse the excret