38 Botanic Drugs 



The content of absolute alcohol in such concen- 

 trated tinctures will range, approximately, from 

 50 to 90 per cent. The commercial and scientific 

 possibilities of such concentrated products are 

 testified to by the fact that for many years several 

 lines of them have been upon the market. 



Normals were introduced to meet the general 

 demand for a fluid preparation of definite com- 

 position to meet the needs of all branches of the 

 profession employing them similarly to the fluid- 

 extracts, and in place of the latter where lack of 

 confidence in the average commercial fluidextract 

 has resulted from the use of dried and otherwise 

 inferior drugs in their manufacture, especially of 

 plant remedies that break down under ordinary 

 gathering, curing, and extraction. 



In most of them 480 grains of the drug is repre- 

 sented in one fluidounce of the finished product; 

 but, in the normals, an improvement over the 

 earlier green plant preparations has been accom- 

 plished in the standardization of the drug to a 

 uniform relation of the dry drug to the finished 

 tincture, thus securing uniformity of dosage and, at 

 the same time, a greater strength and reduced 

 dosage as compared with the earlier green plant 

 unstandardized products. 



In "Specific Medicines," another one of these 

 lines, certain disturbing agents, or agents so re- 

 garded, are eliminated from a number of the prod- 

 ucts. This applies more especially to "Sp. Med. 

 Digitalis" and "Sp. Med. Hydrastis." They were 

 devised to meet the requirements of Eclectic phy- 

 sicians, but their use has spread to other physicians. 



As a class, these products are very satisfactory, 



