We know that Paracelsus owed much of his success to the bold way in which he administered opium to his patients; evidence that his contemporaries did not use it to any great extent. His followers were as enthusiastic as himself over the virtues of opium, and before long the most serious practitioners were advocating it, and devising formulas for its suitable administration. Platerus of Basle about 1600 strongly recommended it, and Sylvius (de la Boe) a Dutch physician said that without opium he would not practise. Van Helmont about 1640 used opium so frequently that he was called the Doctor Opiatus. Sydenham about 1680 says, “Among the remedies which it has pleased Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium.” Many other eminent physicians might be cited to the same effect, and some who took an opposite view. Stahl, for instance, wrote a treatise entitled De Imposturis Opii. Hoffmann considered that the use of opium was greatly abused, and he believed his ether would fulfil its purpose in almost all cases. QUASSIA was sent to Linnæus from Surinam in 1763 by C. D. Dallberg, one of his pupils, with the statement that it formed the basis of a secret remedy employed there by a negro slave in endemic malignant fevers. The negro’s name was reported as Quassi, and from this Linnæus invented the name of quassia. This bitter wood was obtained from a shrub growing in Dutch Guiana, but for the English market it was subsequently superseded by the wood of a large tree growing in Jamaica, belonging to the same genus. The earlier product is, however, still used in France and Germany. Ritman, who was in Surinam in 1756, said he had met with the old negro, Quassi, there, and reported that he was almost worshipped by some, while others suspected him of magic. Ritman, however, found him a simple old man skilled in old women’s medicines. SARSAPARILLA. Sarsaparilla was introduced to Europe early in the sixteenth century, and soon leaped into fame. The great Emperor Charles V, was cured of gout by it, or fancied he was, and this gave it an enormous advertisement. It appeared afterwards that it was really China root, another smilax, that was given to the Emperor, but it was called sarsaparilla, and the western medicine got the glory. Sarsaparilla was vaunted as a cure for syphilis, but physicians were not long in discovering that it was much more effectual whenever it was combined with mercurials. Its advocates insisted that it was a wonderful sudorific, and for many years a “sweating cure” was practised in Denmark and Sweden with apparent success. As a matter of fact sarsaparilla has no sudorific properties whatever; but it was given in long draughts, other more effective medicines were associated with it, and vigorous exercise and heavy blankets were adjuncts of the cure. It is not surprising that a sudorific result ensued.