it is admirably adapted for the basis of remedies intended to obviate constitutional costiveness, for in our endeavours to supply the deficiencies of nature by the resources of art, we should at least attempt to imitate the modes of her operation; the natural stimulus of the intestines, the bile, is poured into them below the stomach, and whenever it regurgitates into that organ it produces disease; so it happens with our cathartic medicines, and unless we so modify their solubility that their operation cannot commence until after their passage through the stomach, we shall find that we only increase the evil we are endeavouring to obviate, and that, in addition to the torpor of the intestinal canal, we shall induce the stomach to participate in the disease, or excite a morbid fretfulness of that organ which will be attended with the most distressing symptoms.[364] _See Formulæ_ 12, 13, 79, 80, 81. Aloes in combination with assafœtida furnishes an eligible purgative in the dyspepsia of old persons; it is also well calculated to obviate the costiveness so generally produced by Opium, (_Form:_ 11, 12, 13.) See also p. 162. OFFICINAL PREPARATIONS. _Pulv: Aloes comp:_ L. _Pil: Alöes cum Myrrha._ L.E.D. Pil: _Aloes comp: Pil: Alöes cum Assafœtida._ E. _Pil: Aloes cum Colocynthide._ E. _Pil: Cambogiæ comp:_ (=B.M.=) L. _Pil: Rhei. comp:_ (=F=) E. _Pil. Scammon, cum Aloe._ D. _Decoctum Aloes comp:_ L. _Extractum Aloes purificatum._ L.D. _Extractum Colocynthidis comp:_ L.D. (=F=) _Tinct: Alöes_ L.E.D. _Tinct: Alöes comp:_ L.E.D. Tinct: Alöes Ætherea, E. _Tinct: Benzoin: comp:_ (=G=) L.E.D. _Tinct: Rhei et Aloes_ E. _Vinum Alöes._ L.E.D. ADULTERATIONS. It is frequently adulterated with common resin, but the fraud more generally committed is that of mixing with, or substituting the inferior species for the Socotrine, but the _Barbadoes Aloes_ may, independent of its want of aromatic flavour, be distinguished from the Socotrine by a simple test, for the latter dissolves entirely in boiling water and alcohol, whereas the former, when treated in a similar manner, leaves a considerable residue; sometimes the _Horse Aloes_ is made to appear so bright and pure, as not to be easily distinguished by the eye even from the _Socotrine_, but its rank odour, of which no art can divest it, will readily betray the fraud. ALUMEN. (_Super-sulphas Aluminæ et Potassæ._) Sulphas Aluminæ. E. Alumen. D. _Alum._