was the original of many vulnerary waters invented for application to wounds, bruises, and ulcers. It was a weak, spirituous distillate from a large number of herbs and aromatic plants, such as angelica, rosemary balm, hyssop, mint, rue, sage, and wormwood. These would furnish an antiseptic lotion. As the arquebus was displaced by the musket about the end of the sixteenth century it may be supposed that the lotion acquired its name and popularity at that same period; but these evidently lasted for a long time, as we find that a certain John Thomson took out a patent for “a concentrated balsam of arquebusade” in 1786. FOUR THIEVES VINEGAR is the sub-title of the Antiseptic Vinegar of the French Codex. It is a strong vinegar in which a number of aromatics with camphor and garlic have been macerated. The story of its origin is that in the year 1720 a plague was raging in the city of Toulouse, and that during the period of panic four thieves went about the city plundering the dead and dying. People wondered why they never took the disease, and when they were ultimately brought to justice and convicted, they were offered pardon if they would reveal the secret of their prophylactic. This is the legend as given by Littré, who quotes it from Abbé Lemontey. Other authors make Marseilles the scene of the exploit. ELIXIR PROPRIETATIS. This medicine was very celebrated in all countries for several centuries, and, though not in the British Pharmacopœia, was official under the name which Paracelsus gave it in the P.L. 1724, as Elixir of Aloes in the P.L. 1746, and later as Tinct. Aloes Co. In the Ph. Ed. it was called Tinct. Aloes et Myrrhæ, and this was the most usual name for it until quite recent times, and probably is still. Paracelsus wrote about it and extolled it as a compound which would prolong life to its utmost limits. That he used the same ingredients mainly as his successors is certain, but he never gave any clear formula. His disciple, Oswald Crollius, however, deduced from his writings that it was a tincture of aloes, myrrh, and saffron, with sulphuric acid. Boerhaave substituted vinegar for the sulphuric acid and left most of that behind by distillation. Van Helmont had previously made an Elixir Proprietatis without any acid; and in many continental pharmacopœias the elixir was made alkaline by the addition of carbonate of potash. This also originated with Boerhaave. Other authors added a few spices. The Elixir of Garus which still appears in the French Codex was the same sort of preparation but with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and other ingredients, diluted with syrup of maidenhair. Garus was a grocer, who acquired great popularity under the Regency with his Elixir. St. Simon says he cured the Maréchal de Villars with it, and that he would probably have saved the life of the Duchesse de Berry if the physician Chirac, jealous of his fame, had not administered to her a purgative