Although this popular medicine was only made official by being adopted in the B. P. Additions, 1874, it had already acquired reputation as a pleasant laxative in household medicine, and had been familiar in German pharmacy for the better part of a century. It first appeared in the Prussian Pharmacopœia in 1799, and had been devised by a noted physician of Berlin, Dr. E. G. Kurella, who died in the year named. He called the mixture Pectoral Powder, and he made an electuary from similar ingredients. The Prussian powder looks like a modification of a compound senna powder included in the first London Pharmacopœia, 1618. This contained senna, liquorice, caraway, fennel, cumin, spikenard, cinnamon, galangal, and gromwell seeds. Its “first contriver” (says Quincy) was Isaac Hollandicus. OPODELDOC. So far as can be traced Paracelsus first used the term opodeldoc (or as it is generally found in his works, opodelloch or opodeltoch). If he invented the word it is probable that he did not derive it from any etymological elements. Various suggestions have been made from time to time in explanation of the term, but without any sound basis. The most ingenious one is given by Hermann Peters in his “Pictorial History of Ancient Pharmacy.” He derives it from the first syllabic of opoponax, the second syllable of bedellium, and the third syllable of aristolochia root. These were the principal ingredients of the old opodeldoc plaster as it appeared in the last Nuremburg edition of the “Dispensatory of Valerius Cordus.” In some dictionaries Mindererus is credited with the invention of the word, but incorrectly. He uses it, but expressly attributes it to Paracelsus. In his “Medicina Militaris,” for example, he advises the army doctor to “be provided with a good plaister for wounds made by thrusting (spear-wounds) such as are the opodeldoc of Theophrastus.” Schröder, another medical author of about the same date (1600) also refers to the “oppodeldoch plaister of Paracelsus.” Paracelsus only uses the term opodeldoc for plasters, and for these he does not give a specific formula. One of his annotators, Felix Wurtz, however, states that the following was the method of preparing the great opodeldoch plaster which Paracelsus was in the habit of using. Its formula was as follows:-- Galbanum, opoponax, of each 3 oz.; ammoniacum, bdellium, of each 1 oz. Macerate for eight days in distilled vinegar and slowly evaporate the solution to the consistence of honey. Then boil together, litharge in fine powder, ½ lb., with 1½ lb. of oil, stirring until the compound acquires the colour of bay. Add 1 lb. of wax, and when melted mix with the solution the gums above mentioned, and soon after add 3 oz. of oil of laurinus. Stir all these diligently until they are perfectly mixed, then remove from the fire and work in the following powders, all finely powdered:--