THE JOURNAL OF PHARMACOLOGY. 209 



(1888). Fischer* (1888), LibbyI (1888), and Rademaker;j;(i876), have 

 also examined the drug. Not a little discrepancy, however, is shown in 

 the results thus far attained. Fischer finds an alkaloid and an organic acid, 

 which he names respectively grindeline and robustic acid. These princi- 

 ples Clark fails to find ; on the other hand, he does find a saponin-like glu- 

 coscide, grindelin, not mentioned in Fischer's analysis. It was in the 

 hope of settling some of the disputed points that the following analysis 

 was made. Dr. W. P. Gibbons, § who, as stated above, first introduced the 

 drug, writes that an extract prepared with an alkaline aqueous menstrum 

 seems to act more efficiently than one prepared with an alcoholic men- 

 strum. In the present analysis, therefore, particular attention is paid to 

 the solubility of the isolated principles in official alcohol and in alkaline 

 water. In the main, the plan followed is that of Dragendorff, only such 

 deviations being made as the special nature of the drug rendered desirable 

 or necessary. 



Eighteen gm. of the freshly powdered drug were dried to constant 

 weight over pumice stone and sulphuric acid. After fourteen days the 

 loss was found to be 5.25 % of the original weight. This was recorded as 

 moisture. 



Five hundred gm. of the commercial drug were taken, the larger stems 

 removed and weighed. Their weight was found to be 15 % of the whole. 

 Assuming, then, that these larger stems are inert — of which assumption 

 we are, however, by no means sure — the percentage of active constituents 

 in the strictly U. S. P. drug (which includes only the leaves and flowering 

 tops) may be calculated from the following estimations by dividing by 0.85. 



Two hundred and fifty gm. of the drug were powdered as finely as the 

 soft resin which was present would permit. The powder was placed in a 

 bottle and macerated a week in the cold, with benzin (B.P. 44 C). The 

 benzin extract was then filtered off, the residue washed with benzin, 

 dried, and reground to a very fine powder. This was placed in an ex- 

 traction apparatus and extracted with a fresh portion of benzin until a 

 few drops of the percolate evaporated from a watch crystal left no residue. 

 This required sixteen hours. 



The contents of the extraction flask were then added to the cold ex- 

 traction, and the volume of the combined solutions noted. An aliquot 

 portion (150 cc.) of this solution was allowed to evaporate spontaneously 

 from a beaker, and the weight of the residue was ascertained. From this 

 figure the weight of the entire benzin extract was calculated. It was 

 found to be 17.4 % of the weight of the drug. 



* Medical Herald; March, 1888. 



t New Remedies ; 1876, p. 205. 



% Pharmaceutical Era ; Jan., 1888. 



I Trans. Medical Soc. State of CaL; 1874, pp. 116-123. 



