REMARKS UPON TINCTURES. 3.45 
The common screw-press was a wretched affair, and led to an enormous loss of 
spirits. 
The Chairman said he had always felt that the direction to add spirit after 
having pressed was wrong, because there was so much difference in the presses. 
One would use a strong press, and another a weak one, and perhaps use it very 
badly. He thought with Mr. Haselden that the spirit should be added and 
carried through the ingredients, and he had adopted this plan. 
Dr. Redwood asked the Chairman if he did not find a little difficulty in ad¬ 
justing the quantity in that way. Were they not liable to have a little too 
much ? 
The Chairman said to avoid that, after having found the quantity re¬ 
quired, he would pass it through the ingredients before adding it to the clear 
tincture. 
Dr. Redwood said that perhaps he might be allowed to make two or three 
remarks with reference to Mr. Haselden’s communication. He would observe, 
with reference to what was looked upon as the British Pharmacopoeia process 
for the preparation of tinctures, which was introduced in the first edition of the 
British Pharmacopoeia, that in the first instance he was not entirely favourable 
to that process. It appeared to him to be a compromise between two processes—• 
namely, maceration and displacement, that there was no advantage resulting 
from the association of the two, and that it would have been better to have 
taken one to the exclusion of the other, whichever was selected; but he must 
confess that the more experience he had had with reference to the working of 
the process the more he had become satisfied with it, and inclined to think that, 
for the purposes contemplated in the Pharmacopoeia, it was, as regarded its 
general character, the best process that could be adopted. Of course there were 
cases where it was not fully applicable, and it was not introduced in cases of 
that description in the Pharmacopoeia; but while he had very deliberately 
formed this opinion with reference to the process, looking at it in its general 
features, he was not at all prepared to say that the method of manipulation in¬ 
dicated in the Pharmacopoeia was what he should consider to be the best method 
for carrying out the objects contemplated. He had on former occasions at the 
meetings of this Society represented his views upon that subject, and he enter¬ 
tained the same opinion as he had expressed on one or two former occasions. 
Mr. Haselden had before brought forward a form of apparatus of his own, and 
it was very natural that he should feel a little favourably disposed towards his 
own child. It so happened, however, that he (Professor Redwood) had a 
child of his own, and he, too, had a very strong feeling in favour of his own 
offspring. He had recommended an apparalms for the preparation of tinctures, 
by the use of which all the essential features of the British Pharmacopoeia pro • 
cess could be fully carried out, and, as he believed, much more conveniently 
carried out than they could be by manipulating exactly in the way indicated in 
the Pharmacopoeia. If it were asked, why the use of that apparatus was not 
indicated in the Pharmacopoeia? his answer would probably be chat he had not 
wished to force forward a method of his own in that way, and especially as it 
related to details of manipulation affecting the convenience of the operator 
rather than the quality of the product. He had therefore left the original pro¬ 
cess with only very slight modifications, knowing as he did then, and as he did 
still, that a large number of men of great practical experience in pharmacy, and 
in whose judgment he had very great confidence, were strongly in favour of that 
process, aud considered it to be in every respect good and unobjectionable, as a 
general process, in the cases where it was directed to be used. He then ex¬ 
plained the apparatus to which he alluded, and the method of using it, as 
described in the Pharmaceutical Journal, Vol. V. n. s. p. 542. He considered 
the process, if carried out in this way, a good and most appropriate process, as 
vol. x. 2 B 
