Pharmaceutical Considerations 37 



have known physicians to give the Homeopathic 

 mother tincture of passiflora in two teaspoonful 

 doses for the relief of insomnia due to painful af- 

 fections, in which form of insomnia passiflora is of 

 no value, and they would push these doses at fre- 

 quent intervals, never realizing that it was the 

 alcohol that made these patients sleep. 



Valerian is a useful drug, but giving quantities 

 of alcohol with it negatives its finest action. Sup- 

 pose you wish to give cimicifuga to a patient suf- 

 fering from chorea, would you wish also to admin- 

 ister quantities of alcohol along with it? Certainly 

 not, as it would be irrational to do so; yet that is 

 precisely what one does in using the United States 

 Pharmacopeia tincture of the eighth revision, now 

 transferred to the National Formulary. 



On the other hand, grain alcohol in proper strength 

 aided occasionally by other solvents is the one 

 agent which extracts from a plant its active me- 

 dicinal content and at the same time does not 

 dissolve the starch, albumen, pectin, and other 

 inert ingredients. In proper concentration, it is 

 possible to make an alcoholic tincture each minim 

 of which represents one grain of the drug, at least 

 as regards the larger number of botanic drugs. It 

 is not contended that a drug worked green, like 

 cactus, can be so concentrated in tincture form; 

 nor is it held that such concentrated agents can 

 be uniformly made in a drug store percolator. 

 But, with proper machinery, the large makers of 

 tinctures and extracts may readily do so with most 

 botanic agents. 2 



2 See further notes under "Improving Conditions" near the close of 

 this section. 



