172 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 867 



are likely to develop free hydrogen diox- 

 ide in contact with water and oxygen ;^^ 

 in the speaker's opinion the presence of 

 such metals should therefore be guarded 

 against in the selection of a container for 

 anesthetic chloroform.-^ 



The PJiarmacopaiia of the United States 

 formerly required the use of "glas.s- 

 stoppered" bottles, but subsequently 

 changed this to "well-stoppered" bottles, 

 thus allowing the use of cork stoppers, a 

 practise which has become general in this 

 country.^^ 



The objections which have been urged 

 against the employment of cork stoppers 

 are two in number. First, the chloroform 

 penetrates the cork after some time, espe- 

 cially during the agitation incidental to 

 shipment, causing shrinkage and perhaps 

 consequent leakage.^* 



The second objection is that organic mat- 

 ter is extracted from the cork and the 

 chloroform fails when the sulphuric acid 



^ Barnes and Shearer, J. Physical Chem., 12, 

 155, 468. 



^AU of the manufacturers of chloroform in this 

 country use brown glass ( ' ' anactinio ' ' ) bottles. 

 Of the eight different makes of German chloro- 

 form examined by the speaker, only two were 

 contained in colorless bottles. 



^ In Germany, however, glass stoppered bottles 

 are used by prominent producers of anesthetic 

 chloroform (Kahlbaum; de Haen; Merck; "A.-G. 

 fiir Anilin-Fabrikation, " etc.). 



^'AUain [/. Pharm. Chim., (3), 9, 571] and 

 Masson [Ihid., (6), 9, 568] have recommended 

 that when chloroform is kept in cork-stoppered 

 bottles, a lute of "bichromate gelatin" should 

 be used to prevent leakage. This is unnecessary 

 when a proper stopper is used, and the employ- 

 ment of lutings on the stoppers has led to many 

 differences between the manufacturer and con- 

 sumer in the past. Only one of the many samples 

 of anesthetic chloroform examined by the authors 

 was contained in a bottle having a luted cork 

 stopper, and in this case considerable organic 

 matter had been taken up, and, as a result, the 

 chloroform failed to comply with the important 

 sulphuric acid test or confused its interpretation. 



test, a test used for the detection of fusel 

 oil, chlorinated decomposition products, 

 etc., is applied. To obviate these difficul- 

 ties, certain manufacturers of chloroform 

 have adopted the plan of covering the bot- 

 tom of corks with tin foil, a procedure 

 which so far has been found to be satisfac- 

 tory, but which may be open to some of the 

 objections to tin containers. Other manu- 

 facturers use a paper or parchment cover- 

 ing, and still others select only the best 

 corks and extract them thoroughly with 

 chloroform before use. 



The impurities which anesthetic chloro- 

 form brings with it from the manufacturer, 

 the so-called "organic impurities," are 

 traceable to the materials used in the mak- 

 ing, method of manufacturing, subsequent 

 purification, and manipulation before mar- 

 keting ; these may be grouped into one class 

 (A). Another class (B) includes those 

 impurities developed during different con- 

 ditions of storage. 



These impurities, even though some may 

 not be of much importance from a physio- 

 logical standpoint, must still be given at- 

 tention, since an impure chloroform is 

 more likely to become altered through oxi- 

 dation during storage, notwithstanding the 

 fact that pure ethyl alcohol has been added. 

 So far as we have been able to learn, the 

 adulteration of anesthetic chloroform is 

 not practised now, and crude chloroform 

 is no longer sold as chloroform of anes- 

 thetic grade. 



You are spared a discussion of the nu- 

 merous tests for the various impurities 

 which may be present in anesthetic chloro- 

 form, as these will soon be available in one 

 of our papers. Suffice it to say that in our 

 laboratory we have studied every test we 

 have been able to find in the literature and 

 have been forced to devise new ones in 

 some cases, while in others we are unable 

 to make any recommendations at all as 



