316 



extracts, in external appearance, are well calculated to deceive — the 

 parcels being as neatly put up, labelled, &c, as those of the genuine. 

 They are sold by the foreign manufacturer, on an average, at about 

 one-half the price of the pure article. 



In this business, as well as in the manufacture of chemical prepa- 

 rations as used in medicine, there has been for years past a regular 

 system of fraud carried on by many of the foreign manufacturers. 

 They have not only expressed their willingness to prepare and send 

 out to order any article in their line adulterated to any extent de- 

 sired, with a corresponding price, to suit, but they now, it seems, 

 keep constantly on hand a supply of the adulterated, as well as of the 

 pure preparations, and when remonstrated with by our honest 

 importers, they excuse themselves by saying that "they must accom- 

 modate the demands or lose sales, &c, as both qualities are ordered 

 in large quantities from the United States — the genuine article, as 

 they are given to understand, for the seaboard, and the adulterated 

 for the western trade!" 



The blue pill mass, a vastly important and useful pharmaceutical 

 preparation, comes to us greatly and dangerously adulterated. This 

 article, when pure, contains 33J per cent, of mercury, combined with 

 conserve of roses, &c. The adulterated article, of which large quan- 

 tities are imported and sold, is, according to the very correct ana- 

 lysis of Professor Reid, of the New York College of Pharmacy, 

 as follows: 



Mercury . . . . • .7.5 



Earthy clay ..... 27.0 



Prussian Blue, used in colouring . . . 1.5 



Sand, in combination with clay . . . 2.0 



Soluble saccharine matters .... 34.0 



Insoluble organic matter . . . . 12.0 



Water ...... 16.0 



100.0 



Thus it will be seen this spurious article contains less than one- 

 quarter of the active principle of the genuine, to say nothing of the 

 indigestible earthy matter, &c. 



Sulphate of quinine, or the salts of the Peruvian bark, a medicine 

 now considered indispensable, and of universal use, particularly 

 where intermittent fever prevails, comes to us adulterated in various 



