Pharmacy, the medicines when mixed together in such a manner as to be fit for the use of the patient. See Pharmacy, under Materia Medica.

Anatomy, the parts of animal bodies prepared and preserved for anatomical uses.

The manner of preserving anatomical preparations, is either by drying them thoroughly in the air, or putting them into a proper liquor.

In drying parts which are thick, when the weather is warm, care must be taken to prevent putrefaction, fly-blows, insects, &c. This is easily done by the use of a solution of corrosive sublimate in spirit of wine, in the proportion of two drams of sublimate to a pound of spirit: the part should be moistened with this liquor as it dries, and by this method the body of a child may be kept safe even in summer. Dried preparations are apt to crack and moulder away in keeping; to prevent this, their surface should be covered with a thick varnish, repeated as often as occasion requires.

Though several parts prepared dry are useful, yet others must be so managed as to be always flexible, and nearer a natural state. The difficulty has been to find a proper liquor for this purpose. Dr Monro says, the best he knows is a well rectified colourless spirit of wine, to which is added a small quantity of the spirit of vitriol or nitre. When these are properly mixed, they neither change their colour nor the consistence of the parts, except where there are serous or mucous liquors contained in them. The brain, even of a young child, in this mixture grows so firm as to admit of gentle handling, as do also the vitreous and crystalline humours of the eye. The liquor of the sebaceous glands and the semen are coagulated by this spirituous mixture; and it heightens the red colour of the injection of the blood-vessels, so that after the part has been in it a little time, several vessels appear which were before invisible. If you will compare these effects with what Ruysh has said of his balsam, you will find the liquor above mentioned to come very near to it.

The proportion of the two spirits must be changed according to the part prepared. For the brain and humours of the eye, you must put two drams of spirit of nitre to one pound of spirit of wine. In preserving other parts which are harder, 30 or 40 drops of the acid will be sufficient; a larger quantity will make bones flexible, and even dissolve them. The part thus preserved should be always kept covered with the liquor: therefore great care should be taken to stop the mouth of the glass with a waxed cork and a bladder tied over it, to prevent the evaporation of the spirit; some of which, notwithstanding all this care, will fly off; therefore fresh must be added as there is occasion. When the spirits change to a dark tincture, which will sometimes happen, they should be poured off, and fresh put in their room; but with somewhat less acid than at first.

The glasses which contain the preparations should be of the finest sort, and pretty thick; for through such the parts may be seen very distinctly, and of a true colour, and the object will be so magnified as to show vessels in the glass which out of it were not to be seen.

As the glass when filled with the liquor has a certain focus, it is necessary to keep the preparation at a proper distance from the sides of it, which is easily done by little sticks suitably placed, or by suspending it by a thread in a proper situation. The operator should be cautious of putting his fingers in this liquor oftener than is absolutely necessary; because it brings on a numbness on the skin, which makes the fingers unfit for any nice operation. The best remedy for this is to wash them them in water mixed with a few drops of oil of tartar per dolichium.

Dr Christ. Jac. Trew prefers the rectified spirit of grain for preserving anatomical preparations to spirit of wine, or to compositions of alcohol, amber, camphor, &c. because these soon change into a brown colour, whereas the spirit from malt preserves its limpid appearance. When any part is to be preserved wet, wash it with water till it is no more tinctured. The water is next to be washed away with spirits, and then the preparation is to be put among spirits in a glass, the mouth of which is to be closely covered with a glass head, over which a wet bladder and leaf-tin are to be tied. Com. Lit. Norimb. 1731, fennet. i. specim. q. See also Pole's Anatomical Instructor, and American Transactions, vol. ii. p. 366.