QUALITY AND PURITY OF VEGETABLE DRUGS 43 



should specify a uniform method of powdering, packing and storing 

 vegetable drugs. Every package of a vegetable powder should have 

 upon it a statement of the age of the crude drug from which said powder 

 was made, date of powdering, fineness of powder, assay strength, and a 

 scale of compensation for assay variation and for age deterioration. 

 To illustrate : a glass stoppered glass container of one pound of bella- 

 donna root might have the following data upon a suitable label : 

 Roots from the crop of 1919. 

 Powdered November 16, 1919. 

 Fineness No. 60 (Standard mesh sieve). 

 Assay, 0.53% of mydriatic alkaloids. 

 Assay compensation, 17.77 per cent. 

 Age compensation: 



End of six months, 5 per cent. 



End of one year, 12 per cent. 



End of two years, 20 per cent. 



End of three years, 35 per cent. 



End of fourth year, 50 per cent. 



(Not to be used after the fourth year) . 



Should the drug assay less or more than the pharmacopceial 

 standard, suitable quantity compensations should be made. All 

 assayable drugs intended for the retail drug trade, should be assayed. 

 This should be made a legal requirement and every package of such 

 assayable drug should bear the correct assay statement. If the retail 

 pharmacist were in position to use drugs standardized as above sug- 

 gested, physicians could reasonably hope for better results from medi- 

 cation. Wholesale pharmaceutical manufactures usually assay the 

 crude drugs which they employ, but their guarantees are based upon 

 the proper standardization of the manufactured product itself. 



10. Ash Determination of Vegetable Drugs. By determining the 

 ash content of vegetable drugs, particularly those in the powdered 

 state, it is frequently possible to get valuable and useful data regarding 

 the quality and purity of the article thus tested. An unusually high 

 percentage of ash indicates excess of sand, clay, dirt and other inor- 

 ganic impurities. The acid insoluble ash should be determined in 

 most instances. In the great majority of drugs most of the ash is 

 soluble in hydrochloric acid and the per cent, of acid insoluble ash is 

 practically the per cent, of silica present (of sand, sand particles of 

 clay and of dirt, etc.). 



Thus far there has been no uniformly applied method for determin- 

 ing the ash percentage of organic drugs. The pharmacopoeias of the 

 different countries report the ash content of drugs in a desultory and 



