346 
PHARMACEUTICAL MEETING. 
a general process to be adopted in the Pharmacopoeia, because a Pharmacopoeia 
method for the production of any product should be one that could be success¬ 
fully adopted by all those who were called upon to make the preparation, how¬ 
ever varied their circumstances might be, or the amount of skill and experience 
which they might possess. He was of opinion that, however excellent the pro¬ 
cess of percolation was for some special purposes, and in skilled hands, it was 
not one that could be advantageously adopted as a general process to be intro¬ 
duced into the Pharmacopoeia. It gave rise, in inexperienced hands, to more 
variable results than the old process of maceration ; and if it were a question 
with him simply between percolation and maceration as a Pharmacopoeia process, 
to be carried out by the druggists throughout the country, he would rather take 
the old process of maceration. But he considered the process he had described 
did not entail those difficulties of manipulation which were involved in the pro¬ 
cess of percolation, pure and simple. It had the advantage, also, that it ob¬ 
viated the objection attaching to the old process of maceration in the time in¬ 
volved, and it met the general requirements of the trade. 
Mr. Haselden said that, to a certain extent, Dr. Redwood seemed to have 
misunderstood him. He admitted that in some cases the Pharmacopoeia process 
was the best; but in some cases he thought percolation was the best. The pro¬ 
cess recommended by Dr. Redwood was a very good one, perhaps better than 
his own, because they could carry it out in a stone jar ; -wherever they had a 
wide mouth they could put in the bag with the ingredients. He thought, how¬ 
ever, when they came to find out how much spirit they lost, they would be 
advantaged by percolation. 
Dr. Attfield would like to make two or three remarks on this subject from 
the point of view of research, and not from what was, by a curious perversion 
of language, called the more practical, the manufacturing point of view; and in 
doing so he did not think that he need offer any apology, because he considered 
that a subject like this was one of the very best that could occupy the attention 
of Pharmaceutists. Mr. Haselden, in the first few paragraphs of his paper, 
seemed to give some sort of apology, as many other gentlemen had done when 
reading papers before the Society, or publishing them in the Journal, for pro¬ 
posing to discuss processes different from those which were already given in the 
Pharmacopoeia. He (Dr. Attfield) supposed that no one reading the accounts 
of these papers in the Journal would think, for one moment, that any sugges¬ 
tions were given for deviating from the principles which were laid down in the 
Pharmacopoeia. What he thought was intended by the workers in this line of 
research, and by the authors of papers like that before them, was that their 
remarks should not influence the processes of the present Pharmacopoeia, but 
those of future editions. To come from these general remarks to more special 
ones concerning the subject in hand, he would observe that Mr. Haselden had 
referred to papers or notes by Mr. Laird and Mr. Savage, the former of whom 
mentioned the specific gravity of tinctures as being a good indication of their 
value. But he (Dr. Attfield) did not take it that he put that forward as the 
only indication of their value. Mr. Savage had recommended, not for the first 
time by any means, the evaporation of a given quantity of tincture, so as to 
ascertain the weight of solid residue, as one means of estimating the value of 
tinctures ; but he, too, so far as he (Dr. Attfield) remembered, would not recom¬ 
mend that as the sole means of estimating the value of the tincture. And then 
Mr. Haselden, though he thought they should “ taste and try ” before they 
bought, surely would not suggest that they should look at, and smell and taste 
the tincture with the view of determining its value. The only way of getting 
at the value of tinctures, when they did not know r their active principles, was 
to adopt all these processes; and before they could say of any one tincture that 
it was as good as it could be made, they should taste and smell, and also estimate 
