12 PHARMACOPEIAL DRUGS 



any aloes of a liver-color, regardless of its geographical 

 origin. 



"Professor Tschirch (653) distinguishes between the 

 crystalline aloes (aloe hepatica), prepared at lower 

 temperatures, and the transparent variety (aloe lucida), 

 prepared at a higher heat, which more or less precludes 

 crystallization, as shown in Cape aloes. The botanic 

 origin of these commercial products, however, is not 

 always precisely known, e. g., the exact plant used in 

 making Natal aloes or Socotrine aloes. Yet, even if 

 they are produced by different varieties of the aloe 

 plant, their marked differences in appearance, odor and 

 composition can hardly be attributable to this factor 

 alone. It is safe to say that the manner of collection 

 and the care bestowed upon the juice, as well as its 

 subsequent manipulation, influences the character of 

 the commercial product, regardless of the aloe plant 

 yielding it. Dr. Squibb (610a), for example, who 

 champions purified aloes, admits that so simple a 

 process as that of purification of the commercial drug 

 alters it to some extent. 1 



"Commercial Socotrine aloes is now collected from 

 the coast countries of the Red Sea and Zanzibar, and 

 occurs sometimes in a semiliquid state, which is due to 

 imperfect inspissation. It is exported from Bombay 

 and Zanzibar, the bulk of the product being consumed 

 in the United States. That shipped from Bombay is 

 previously received via Zanzibar and the Red Sea 

 ports, and arrives in skins of varying sizes, which are 

 opened and repacked into boxes for exportation. 



1 This, according to our experience, applies to many drugs and plant extractives. A 

 plant crudity may be "purified to death. Interlocked structures that lean upon each 

 other as a whole, or are entwined physically so as to present a united influence, when 

 shattered by heroic chemistry, may not, in any educt or product, parallel the parent 

 structure. 



