APPENDIX. 189 
The percentage amount of the extractive in tinctures was ascer- 
tained by evaporating 10 c.c. of the sample over a water-bath, heat- 
ing the residue at 100° till the weight was constant, and multiplying 
the result by ten. 
It will be remarked that the last five series of tinctures show a much 
higher yield of extract than the first six, and it will also be noticed 
that the difference is more marked in the case of the tinctures pre- 
pared with the stronger menstrua. This discrepancy is accounted 
for by the fact that series 1—6 were made, as the Pharmacopoeia 
directs, from the bruised seeds, while the drugs employed in the 
preparation of series 7—1] were reduced to somewhat fine powder 
before being converted into tincture. We have previously pointed 
out, in connection with the tinctures of conium and colchicum, that 
it is not advisable to reduce the drug to a fine state of disintegration. 
The sole result, in. the case of stramonium seeds, is to expose the oily 
albumen to the free action of the menstruum, and as a consequence 
to load the tinctures prepared with the stronger menstrua with a 
quantity of oily and ‘in all probability inert matter, This is proved 
(as was the case with tincture of colchicum) by the remarkable varia- 
tion in the yield of extractive, by the tinctures of higher and those 
of lower alcoholic strength. As a general rule, the weaker the men- 
struum, the greater the percentage of extractive in the resulting 
tincture, but in the case of seed-tinctures this rule is reversed. 
