ALKALOID IN CITRATE OF IRON AND QUININE. 
157 
I found it to be about 85 grains, a pretty fair percentage. On boiling a small 
portion in water, cooling, and testing with iodine, it gave the blue starch re¬ 
action very strongly. Under the microscope it looks like what is sold for “ lint- 
seed meal,” mixed with minute portions of an emerald-green substance. 
These results are not before the meeting with that exactitude I should have 
liked, but they are sufficient to show that roll annatto, as supplied to the trade, 
instead of being the best annatto, is merely a paste of farina and salt, coloured 
with about fifteen per cent, of annatto. 
It may be that the merchants are not able to sell it pure at the price charged, 
Is. 4 d. per lb. Let them give it pure and charge a fair price whatever it may 
be, the honest dealer will not refuse it. 
Mr. J. D. Smith said that the members of the Conference from a distance would do a 
practical service to chemists in the country if they could tell them where to get good 
annatto. They could hardly sell a pound of annatto now-a-days without having it 
returned as being adulterated. They would be glad to sell pure annatto if they could 
get it. 
The President said that annatto was no longer grown in the British West Indies, but 
he thought he might say that the whole came from the French colony of Cayenne, and 
it certainly was grossly adulterated. He was glad to know that there was a possibility 
of its being grown in English colonies, as a specimen prepared in Guiana had been sent 
to him, and most favourably reported on by a London importer w r ho had seen it. 
Mr. Evans called attention to the fact that one sort of annatto was used for butter 
and another for cheese. What was usually sold was certainly “a villainous compound.” 
He had reason to believe that attention was being given to the reintroduction of the 
manufacture in the British West Indies. 
Professor Attfield said that no better illustration could be given of the use of their 
discussions than the present. A crying evil, felt by the trade throughout the country, 
had been now exposed, and the many thousands of reports of this discussion which 
would be circulated throughout Europe and the colonies would tell those who could 
produce a pure article that they would find a ready market in England. 
REPORT ON THE QUANTITY OF ALKALOID IN VARIOUS 
SPECIMENS OF CITRATE OF IRON AND QUININE. 
BY J. C. BRA1THWAITE. 
(Continued.) 
Through the kindness of Dr. Attfield, I recently received ten fresh samples 
of this valuable medicine, and it is gratifying to find that they contain more 
of the alkaloid than those I have previously reported on ; nevertheless there is 
still plenty of room for improvement, as it will be observed that out of the ten 
samples one contains only about one-fourth of the proper quantity, another 
about one-third , two more about one-half two others not quite three-fifths, 
whilst the remaining four yield about the legitimate proportion. 
As in my former papers, I have numbered the different specimens progres¬ 
sively in accordance with the amount of alkaloid contained in them. 
No. 25. This specimen was received wrapped in oiled paper. It had cohered 
into a glue-like mass of an olive-green colour, and all trace of its ever having 
existed in the form of scales was obliterated. When exposed to the air at a 
temperature of 60° it remained unaltered. It dissolved readily in water, yield¬ 
ing a solution of a golden-green colour, which formed a slight deposit. It had 
an acid reaction on test paper, and a moderately bitter, non-chalybeate taste. 
Ammonia produced a more scanty precipitate than in any of the succeeding 
