| Note |
COCKLE'S PILLS. OR PURE VEGETABLE INGREDIENTS AND FREE FROM MERCURY.
THE PHARMACOPŒIA. An extract from the second edition (page 188) of the translation of the Pharmacopœia of the Royal College of Physicians of London by Dr. G. F. Collier, published by Longman and Co.:- "It is no small defect in this compilation (speaking of the New Pharmacopœia) that we have no purgative mass but what contains aloes, yet we know that hœmorrhoidal persons cannot bear aloes except it be in the form of
COCKLE'S PILLS, which chiefly consist of aloes, scammony, and colocynth, which I think are formed into sort of compound extract, the acridity of which is obviated. I suspect, by an alkaline process, and by a fourth ingredient (unknown to me) of an aromatic tonic nature, I think no better and no worse of it for its being patent medicine. I look at it as an article of commerce and domestic convenience. I look at it as an article of commerce and domestic convenience, and do not hesitate to say it is the best made Pill in the Kingdom; a mascular purge, a mucous purge, and a hydrogogue purge combined, and their effects properly controlled by a dirigent and corigent. That it does not commonly produce hæmorrhoids, like most aloetic Pills, I attribute to its being thoroughly soluble, so that no undissolved particles adhere to the mucous membrane. |