VIII, B, i DuMez: Oleoresin of Aspidium 525 



With the object of arriving at the therapeutic value of the 

 male fern rhizomes and their extract, various methods for the 

 estimation of the above-mentioned constituents have been devised. 

 Some of them, as the methods of Bocchi '** and Daccomo and 

 Scoccianti,'^ or the method employed by Caeser and Loretz,^" 

 give results corresponding to the total amount of acid substances 

 (crude filicin) present; while the more specialized methods of 

 Fromme -^ or Kraft -- indicate only the filix acid " content. In 

 view of the uncertainty regarding the chief tseniafuge constituent 

 of the extract and the contradictory results obtained by various 

 investigators (see above), the determination of the filix acid 

 for the purpose of indicating the therapeutic value seems to 

 be of little or no importance. The determination of the crude 

 filicin in fresh green rhizomes or extracts prepared immediately 

 from them undoubtedly serves, in a measure, as an index to their 

 activity; but it serves neither to detect certain classes of adul- 

 terations in commercial extracts, nor to show the true therapeutic 

 value of deteriorated extracts or those prepared from old rhi- 

 zomes for reasons that will be considered later. 



METHODS OF ADULTERATION 



The adulteration of the extract is not limited to the addition 

 of foreign substances to the finished product, but begins with 

 the drug from which it is prepared. The forms in which the 

 drug is contaminated may be conveniently classed under three 

 heads: (a) the substitution of old deteriorated rhizomes for the 

 fresh active drug, (6) the admixture of the chaff and dead stipe 

 bases with the rhizomes, and (c) the addition of the rhizomes of 

 other species of ferns to those of the official species. The first 

 form of adulteration is, perhaps, the most common and most 

 widely spread. 



The pharmacopoeia of the United States -* directs that the dried 

 rhizomes, from which the chaff together with the dead portions 

 of rhizomes and stipes have been removed, and only such portions 

 as have retained their internal green color, should be used. That 

 it is almost impossible, from an economical standpoint, for the 



'' Apoth. Zeitg. (1901), 16, 233. 



" Pharm. Zeitg. (1896), 39, 280, from Boll. Chim. Pharm. (1893), 130. 



"Jahresb. d. Pharm. (1905), 65, 425. 



"Pharm. Centralhalle f. Deutschl (1897), 38, 34. 



"Schweiz. Wochenschr. /. Pharm. (1896), 34, 217. 



" Felix acid is used in this paper to represent the German "Filixsaure" 

 rather than "filicic acid," the usual English translation, to avoid confusion 

 with the "filicin acid" of Boehm. 



"U. S. P., 8 Rev. (1905), 62. 



