456 
PHA11MACEUTICAL MEETING. 
■water with that of genuine saffron under the same conditions ; thus, in the former 
case as already noticed, the orange-yellow colour of the greater portion is immedi¬ 
ately communicated to the water, and the anthers left of their natural pale yellow 
colour while the genuine saffron mixed with it retains the principal portion ot 
its orange-yellow colour for some time afterwards; while in the latter, or true 
saffron, the whole retains its orange-yellow colour for a long period. lhe na¬ 
ture of the colouring matter thus used for dyeing the saffron is more difficult 
to determine, and I am as yet by no means satisfied upon this point, It may 
have been a very strong solution of genuine saffron, and the similarity of the 
colour produced by infusing in water this spurious saffron and that ot genuine 
saffron would appear strongly to confirm this view ; but when we remember how 
little genuine saffron is contained in it, yet the depth of colour as shown by in¬ 
fusion and by its dilution with water, is scarcely in any degree less than that 
of genuine saffron, this becomes more doubtful. This, however, is a matter 
of comparatively trifling importance, and may be left for future investigation. 
This adulteration of saffron with the stamens of crocus has never been 
noticed previously in this country ; no allusion having been made to it m the 
works of Pereira, Boyle, Christison, or other of our authorities on materia 
medica ; neither had it, so far as I knew when the above was written, been 
noticed by foreign writers on pharmacology, but I have since had my attention 
directed to a note on a similar kind of adulteration by Professor Guibourt, 
which had occurred in France. I do not, of course, mean to say that the sta¬ 
mens of Crocus have not been before noticed in specimens of saffron, for■occa¬ 
sionally a few authors may be detected in them ; but as these are found ot their 
natural pale-yellow colour, and untwisted, no attempt having been made to dye 
and otherwise alter their appearance, their presence is evidently accidental, and 
due to carelessness in collecting saffron. _ , r m 
Since the above was written, I have examined various specimens of saffron 
obtained from different quarters, in two of which I have detected the same 
fraudulent admixture of stamens with the genuine drug.. In both these in¬ 
stances, however, the admixture of stamens with the genuine saffron occurre 
to a far less extent than in the specimen I have particularly described in this 
paper. One of these specimens was certainly twenty years old, and was marked 
“adulterated saffron”; and the other was a specimen of saffron exhibited as 
genuine at the Great International Exhibition held in London in lo62. feucn 
beiim the result of my examinations in so short a period, I think it will soon be 
found that the adulteration of saffron with the stamens, etc., of Crocus is by 
no means rare in this country and elsewhere. 
Mr. Deane could not forbear remarking, after the interesting paper they 
had just heard read, upon the importance of chemists at the present day possess¬ 
ing some knowledge of practical botany, as without such knowledge the ad¬ 
mixture of stamens, etc., in the present instance could not have been c iscoverec ; 
but thus armed, the fact was made out and everything relating to the admixture 
rendered satisfactory. Mr. Deane said that he was not familiar wit i t le o- 
tanical characters of the Saffron and other species of Crocus ; hence, he should 
like to ask Professor Bentley whether he had any reason to believe that the 
admixture of stamens, etc., in the specimen of saffron, now described, had been 
derived from the flowers of the common spring crocus, and afterwards frau¬ 
dulently mixed with genuine saffron, or whether they had been obtained together 
with the true saffron from the flowers of the saffron crocus, and their presence 
consequently the result of very great carelessness in collecting the true saffron. 
Professor Bentley, in reply to Mr. Deane, said that there could be no doubt 
but that in the present specimen of saffron a great and systematic adulteration 
had taken place. It was quite true that we might occasionally find a few stamens, 
