231 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. [September 21 , 1872. 
quantity that should he required ; and I have used about 
5 per cent, in excess of that required by theory, and I 
have reduced to a minimum the chief complaint—that 
of sending out the tincture on a large scale with the 
smell of hyponitrous ether by the action of a large 
quantity of nitric acid on spirit of wine. When the 
smell is so prevalent, I have noticed the peculiar appear¬ 
ance described by Mr. Glaisyer. Perhaps it is that some 
of the salt is reduced into the ferrous state. It certainly ; 
has that peculiar colour which we notice in testing 
for nitrous acid. 
Professor Attfield : Irrespective of the presence of 
nitric acid or nitrate of iron, there is an action between 
the perchloride of iron and the alcohol. That action 
commences as soon as the tincture is made, and goes on 
slowly, varying in rate according to the position occu¬ 
pied by your specimen in relation to light, until ulti¬ 
mately, after some years, in many cases, the whole of 
the ferric salt is reduced to ferrous chloride. And inas¬ 
much as this always takes place, though the rate varies, 
I conceive that we should prefer to use, wherever we 
can legitimately do so, the aqueous solution of per¬ 
chloride of iron, rather than the spirituous one ; and as 
I have never heard, though I have made many inquiries 
amongst medical men, that the tincture is really sup¬ 
posed to be of any great therapeutic value over the 
liquor, we may hope that in time we may produce such 
an impression upon medical men that they will use the 
liquor. 
Mr. Hanbury : But so long as there is a tincture 
ordered in the Pharmacopoeia, I hold that we are bound 
in honesty to use it. 
Mr. Sutton : I quite agree with Mr. Hanbury. Only 
last week I had brought back to me a bottle half full of 
tincture of perchloride of iron. It had become thick 
and disagreeable in appearance ; and, in fact, the change 
had taken place by its standing six weeks. The cus¬ 
tomer said that she could not take it. I have no doubt 
that the real effect produced is similar to that of the re¬ 
ducing action of alcohol upon chromium salts, only in 
the case of iron it is very much slower. 
Professor Attfield : The body produced is a chlori¬ 
nated ethereal body. I am not quite sure which, but it 
is an ethereal body. 
Mr. Groves : 1 believe there are two classes of action 
which take place. If the liquor contains too small a 
proportion of chlorine, a very speedy reaction occurs, and 
a sub-salt is thrown down. If the liquor contains an 
excess of acid which it ought to have in order to be per¬ 
manent, then, after a lapse of greater time, an ethereal 
action occurs, and you get quite a different affair. In 
either case the result is unfortunate. I suppose every 
one here is in the habit of doing what I do, of keeping 
the liquor ferri, and mixing it when required. 
Professor Markoe : The practice of the United States 
provides for a proportion of muriatic acid, added pur¬ 
posely with the intention of gradually developing or 
forming muriatic ether. We all take especial pains not 
to dispense the tincture of chloride of iron until it has 
acquired the distinct odour of muriatic ether. I have 
forgotten what is the percentage in excess of muriatic 
acid, but it is added purposely; and we have two pre¬ 
parations—the simply watery solution and the tincture 
—which are used distinctly by physicians. 
Professor Attfield : I should say that the remarks 
which have fallen from Professor Markoe seem to sug¬ 
gest that an important agent introduced into pharmacy 
and the practice of medicine would be the old German tinc¬ 
ture, which is, I believe, a solution in which the per-salt 
of iron has disappeared altogether. It is a light green 
liquid, which you may obtain quite easily by putting 
your bottle of tincture of perchloride of iron out in the 
sunlight for a few months. You will then get the maxi¬ 
mum instead of the variable proportion, which, I suppose, 
would always be present according to the practice of 
pharmacy in America. 
Mr. Reynolds: This preference for the ethereal 
flavoured tincture is not confined to America. I have 
standing instructions from one physician always to use 
such a tincture in preference to one that has not the 
flavour of ether. I suppose we must regard the reason 
to be not that the physician considers the ethereal 
flavour to have any special medicinal quality, but that it 
makes it a somewhat more elegant remedy. If it be not 
stable and permanent, it is quite desirable, of course, that 
we should have a tincture free from that objection. 
Mr. Haselden : I have never, I believe, taken a 
liberty with the Pharmacopoeia, but I have taken a liberty 
with my customers. When the present form of tincture 
of perchloride of iron was first introduced, it was quite 
impossible (at least I found it so) to make the prepara¬ 
tion, or to buy a preparation that was suitable for those 
who before had been used to the tincture of perchloride 
of iron, or muriate of iron of the London Pharmacopoeia. 
Well, having no new preparation which was satisfactory, 
what was to be done ? I could only supply that which 
had been supplied before, and which was perfectly 
satisfactory to the patients and the medical men with 
whom I came in contact. Having found this old pre¬ 
paration approved of by both these parties, and not being 
able to get a good preparation from the new Pharma¬ 
copoeia, I have continued to use, up to the present day, 
the old tincture of muriate of iron. That, I believe, is 
an efficient preparation. If made according to the 
London Pharmacopoeia, a saturated solution is ob¬ 
tained, and the addition of the spirit really makes no 
difference either in appearance or effect. It has, 
as far as I know, always been a satisfactory pre¬ 
paration to my customers. We talk about an aqueous 
solution. I dare say the solution might be better 
adapted for some cases, but medical men sometimes order 
two drachms of tincture of perchloride of iron, or muriate 
of iron, and at the same time 14 drachms of tincture of 
cinnamon. If simple tincture of cinnamon and tincture 
of muriate of iron are mixed, a tolerably fair mixture is 
obtained ; but if water were used, decomposition of the 
tincture of cinnamon would result. Therefore, before 
recommending very strongly an aqueous solution, I think 
the matter should be well thought over and well tested, 
and it should be tried whether that would be really a 
better product than the old preparation. 
Researches on the Constituents of Aloes. 
FART I.—BY WILLIAM A. TILDEN, D.SC. LOND., F.C.S. 
On a former occasion I had the honour of presenting 
to the Conference the results of some experiments which 
I had made upon the constituents of aloes, and an in¬ 
vestigation of the action of alkalies upon those sub¬ 
stances, chiefly with regard to the changes which have 
been observed in several pharmaceutical preparations. 
The object of the present paper is to bring together all 
the facts that have been established with reference to 
the chemical composition and properties of the proximate 
constituents of aloes, including some new experiments 
which I have been assisted in carrying out by the able 
co-operation of Mr. Edward Rammell. 
The various kinds of aloes met with in commerce are, 
of course, well known to consist of the inspissated juice 
obtained from a peculiar stratum of vessels in the leaves 
of different species of Aloe. It is said that the juice 
which exudes from a freshly cut leaf is comparatively 
pale in colour, but that it speedily becomes brown by 
exposure to the air. There can be little doubt that this 
change which commences thus early in the aloetic liquid 
advances much further before the inspissation is com¬ 
plete, whether that operation is performed with the aid 
, of artificial or solar heat, or whether the evaporation 
proceeds spontaneously. In the peculiar semi-fluid, 
socotrine aloes, frequently met with in commerce, the al¬ 
teration is less marked than in the other solid varieties, 
