100 Kansas Academy of Science. 



REPORT ON ANALYSES OF PREPARATIONS UNDER 

 THE PURE FOOD AND DRUGS LAW. 



By L. E. Sayre, University of Kansas, Lawrence. 



IT IS well known, perliaps, that the work of drug analysis under 

 the direction of the Board of Health is located at the University 

 of Kansas. It has been thought desirable to make a few remarks 

 at this time as to the progress of the work and some of the problems 

 with wliich we have to deal. 



A separate laboratory is set apart for the investigations and 

 analyses, and one person, Mr. Adolph Ziefle, devotes the major part 

 of his time to the work. Some of the investigations, which require 

 research for which the regular analyst has not the time to devote, 

 is taken charge of by Mr. L. D. Havenhill, who has a special re- 

 search room for his purposes. Mr. Havenhill will in the future do 

 a considerable amount of investigational work, which will bear 

 directly upon the question of standards. It is well known that Mr. 

 Havenhill has spent a year under the United States Grovernment in 

 Washington and in New York at the appraisers' stores. 



The microscopic work, which is one that requires a specially 

 trained man, is taken charge of by Mr. Chas. M. Sterling. But to 

 Mr. Ziefle comes the burden of the mass of analyses that is pouring 

 into the laboratory weekly. The difficulties that he encounters are 

 very numerous, because of the fact that he has such a great variety 

 of materials to deal with, and this variety comes in every collection 

 sent in by the inspectors. If it were possible to take one particu- 

 lar article and run an hundred analyses on this same article, it is 

 easy to see that this would be very much simpler than if the hun- 

 dred articles should contain from fifty to sixty different kinds of 

 analyses, each of which requires different solutions and reagents to 

 be specially prepared. 



One of the difficulties which we have recently encountered re- 

 lates to the subject of deterioration. This has become a very pro- 

 voking problem. The question has arisen, What shall be con- 

 sidered as deteriorated ; what chemical tests and what chemical 

 results will prove that a substance is deteriorated ? 



The difficulty appears to be to determine what would be con- 

 sidered legally as "deteriorated" — what terms should determine 

 this condition. Some regulation or definition to meet the case 

 might be suggested, such as the following : 



