Chemical and Physical Papers. 75 



That these drugs and their preparations vary has been proven 

 by the foremost pharmacologists. 



Dixon, in the BritisJi Medical Journal, says that he and Haynes 

 demonstrated in Cambridge the variability of action of the group 

 of cardiac tonics, including digitalis, strophanthus and squills. He 

 makes the statement that he believes hundreds of patients die an- 

 nually from digitalis and its allies in not possessing the exact quan- 

 tity of active principle required of them. 



Houghton states, in the Journal of the Medical Association, that 

 he found by testing preparations of the well-known active drug 

 strophanthus that some were three times as strong as others. 



A series of investigations by Edmunds on tincture of digitalis is 

 very interesting, and shows very ijlainly the uncertainty of this 

 particular preparation. His object in collecting the samples was 

 to get the greatest variety in respect to diflferent methods of manu- 

 facture, drugs from different sources, and tinctures made from sup- 

 posedly assayed tluid extracts from certain manufacturing houses. 

 His results showed that some of the tinctures are almost four times 

 as strong as others, or, in other words, that- four or five drops of one 

 will produce the same effect as fifteen of another preparation. 

 Since the average dose of tincture of aconite is ten drops, it can be 

 plainly seen what a marked variation in activity there would exist 

 if these were dispensed. Another interesting feature shown by this 

 investigation was that a pharmacist made two preparations, one be- 

 ing four times stronger than the other. Four samples for the same 

 wholesale house varied very markedly, but this was not strange, 

 since they made no pretense at physiological assay. 



These instances I have mentioned are by no means rare. They 

 exist in every drug and its preparations for which there is no 

 chemical method of assay, and it is merely a question of "luck" 

 with the patient when he gets his prescription, and unless very 

 rapid advances are made to perfect and simplify methods for physi- 

 ological assay for these questionable drugs this dangerous condi- 

 tion will become worse instead of better. 



I trust that you will not infer from the above that I am pessi- 

 mistic in regard to this precarious condition of certain official 

 preparations on the market. During a period of nearly two years 

 we have come in contact. with nearly all druggists of this state by 

 analyzing one or more of their own prepared official preparations. 

 The condition in which we found some of the more simple ones 

 leaves no room for doubt that they would make a decided failure in 

 the attempt to manufacture these more difficult preparations. At 



