-March 8, 18? 3 ] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
715 
PHARMACEUTICAL MEETING. 
Wednesday , March 5, 1873. 
MR. A. F. HASELDEN, F.L.S., PRESIDENT, IN THE CHAIR. 
The minutes of the last meeting were read and ap¬ 
proved. 
The following donations to the library were an¬ 
nounced, and the thanks of the Society were voted to 
the donors:— 
‘ Proceedings of the Royal Society, from the Society; 
* Pharmacopoeia of the United States,’ and ‘ Proceedings 
of the American Pharmaceutical Association,’ from the 
Association; ‘Pharmaceutical Times,’ vols. i. ii. (1846-7), 
from Professor Attfield; ‘ Remarks on the Ipecacuan 
Plant,’ hy Professor Balfour, from the Author. 
Legal Pharmaceutical Preparations. 
A paper upon the above subject, by Charles Symes, 
Ph.D., was, at the request of the Chairman, read by Pro¬ 
fessor Attfield. The paper is printed at p. 701. 
Fluid Extracts Illustrative of American 
Pharmacy. 
Mr. Umney placed upon the table several fluid ex¬ 
tracts illustrative of American pharmacy. 
Upon being requested by the President to make some 
remarks upon them, he said that he had placed these 
fluid extracts upon the table that evening to call the at¬ 
tention of the meeting, and of pharmacists generally, to 
fluid extracts as prepared by the formulae given in the 
recent edition of the United States Pharmacopoeia, pub¬ 
lished in January of this year. Of the forty-six there 
enumerated (twenty-two of which were introduced for 
the first time), he had experimented with six, the selec¬ 
tion having been made from the drugs in daily use in 
this country, viz. cinchona, calumba, ergot, rhubarb, ta¬ 
raxacum, pareira. Percolation was the mode of prepa¬ 
ration entirely resorted to in the production of these 
fluid extracts, the menstruum being a novel one (at any 
rate to this country), a mixture of alcohol, glycerine, and 
water. The proportions might be expressed generally as 
about 50 per cent, of alcohol, 20 per cent, (fluid) of gly¬ 
cerine, and 30 per cent, of water ; they varied, however, 
according to the drug to be operated upon. By alcohol was 
intended a spirit of wine about 57'5 per cent, overproof 
(*835), a little stronger, in fact than our officinal rectified 
.spirit, and not alcohol as we understand it. The drug 
having been brought into the proper state of division, 
it is moistened with a portion of the menstruum. And 
here he would remark that the American Pharmacopoeia 
defines its powders by giving a table of the number 
of meshes to the inch through which they are. to 
pass; for instance, the powder passed through a sieve 
of eighty or more meshes to the linear inch being 
designated very fine, through one of sixty meshes fine, 
one of fifty meshes moderately fine , one of twenty 
meshes coarse , and so on. This he thought the com¬ 
pilers of our British Pharmacopoeia might copy with 
advantage. The drug then was allowed to stand 
in a moderately warm place for four days, the rest 
of the menstruum then added, and percolation proceeded 
with as slowly as possible to call it percolation at all. 
Displacement of this menstruum was then carried on by 
diluted alcohol, a spirit about 20 under proof (Sikes 
hydrometer), or -941 sp. gr. Operating upon sixteen 
troy ounces of the drug, the first fourteen fluid ounces 
were reserved, the remaining percolate of ten ounces or 
more according to the drug operated on was evaporated, 
one ounce of glycerine being previously. added. This 
being reduced to two fluid ounces was mixed with the 
first fourteen ounces, making in all sixteen fluid ounces, 
equal to sixteen troy ounces of the drug, corresponding 
in strength very nearly to some of the fluid extracts of 
the British Pharmacopoeia. As far as one could judge 
the aim of our American friends had been to economise 
alcohol, labour, and fuel, of course not losing sight of 
the most essential points—reliability and stability of 
the extracts themselves. As to the elegance of these 
preparations, he would ask the meeting to judge. He was 
personally of opinion that they far surpassed the fluid 
extracts of British pharmacy, as prepared by several 
aqueous infusions of the drug, and concentration by eva¬ 
poration. He might add the preparation of taraxacum 
was much stronger than any officinal preparation we 
have of the same root in our Pharmacopoeia; it is, at 
least, ten times the strength, as far as the weight of dry 
taraxacum root it represents, as the succus taraxaci of 
the British Pharmacopoeia, and has therefore a more 
decided bitter flavour. 
Mr. Sandford said that he had examined with interest 
the specimen of fluid extract of pareira brava, as it 
was a preparation to which he had given considerable 
attention, and he was of opinion that it by no means ex¬ 
celled, if even it were equal to, the. preparation made 
according to the British Pharmacopoeia. 
Material for Suppositories. 
Mr. A. W. Gerrard called the attention of the meet¬ 
ing to some specimens of suppositories and pessaries which 
were on the table. He said that through the. remarks 
of Professor Redwood, at the last evening meeting, con¬ 
cerning some objections which had been made by medi¬ 
cal men to the present basis used in their preparation, 
he was induced to make a number of experiments with 
the view of obtaining a substance which should not have 
the objections then urged. It was not necessary 
for him to give the details of every experiment, but it 
would suffice if he mentioned that, he tried combinations 
of glycerine and isinglass, glycerine and gelatine, gly¬ 
cerine and starch and glycerine and soap, but had dis- 
discarded them all as unsuitable for. the purpose. 
With respect to glycerine and soap he might mention a 
curious fact, and one he believed not generally known,— 
it was that those substances can be made to combine on 
heating them together, in the proportion of 80 per cent, 
of the former to 20 of the latter. The mixture on cool¬ 
ing had a solid consistence, and moulded easily, forming 
apparently an elegant suppository ; but he found that in 
a few hours the suppositories so prepared were covered 
with an exudation of glycerine which rendered them ob- 
jectionable, as would be seen by some that were on th.e 
table. The other specimens were mixtures of paraffin 
and oil of theobroma and wax and^ oil of theo- 
broma in various proportions. Paraffin was a sub¬ 
stance of a somewhat novel character to the pharma¬ 
cist, having a melting-point varying from 111° to 130 
F., and being remarkable for its want of. chemical pro¬ 
perties ; hence it had been suggested to him for the pur¬ 
pose, and he thoughtit gave excellent results. The com¬ 
bination to which he should give the preference would be 
that of equal parts of paraffin and theobroma oil. kuch 
a combination softened readily at the temperature oi the 
body, which is about 98° F. He trusted that on some 
other occasion he should be able to give the results of 
irther experiments. . 
Mr. Mackay said that the use of suppositories was to 
great extent introduced into medical practice by the 
ite Sir James Simpson, of Edinburgh, who attached very 
onsiderable importance to that mode of administering 
ledicines. He had even expressed the opinion that by 
le application of certain drugs in the form of supposi- 
iries, the use of medicines by the mouth might to a cer- 
lin extent be superseded. Several materials, had irom 
me to time been used as bases for the preparation ot sup- 
ositories and pessaries, and at first the mixture was prm- 
ipally wax and oil. These, however, proved awkward, as 
aey required to be varied according to the season oi t e 
ear, the preparations answering the purpose m hot sum- 
ler weather requiring to be varied in cold wintry weather, 
mong the most successful substitutes for the above were 
>und to be a mixture of gelatine and glycer m ^ , a . n< T SU< V 
combination still continued to be used in Edinburgh 
i the preparation of both pessaries and suppositones. 
