April 5, 1873.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
797 
as the preparation he had suggested, or even as the cacao 
butter. He thought that, when mixed with other fatty 
oil, it would have a tendency to separate, and would be 
apt to exude from the parts to which it was applied. 
Mr. Gerrard said he had been trying the melting 
points of various mixtures of fatty oils, and he found in 
the case of stearin and oil, when heated to a certain tem¬ 
perature, that the oil separated out, leaving the solid 
substance in a mass. Supposing they had a mixture of 
paraffin, which melted at 110° F., and theobroma, which 
had a melting point at about 82° F., although the Pharma¬ 
copoeia gave it at 122° F., when the thermometer reached 
82° F. the oil of theobroma gradually melted out, and 
the paraffin floated about in small particles on the surface, 
and it was the same with stearin and oil. Stearin would 
not melt under 140° F. or 145° F., and therefore the same 
objection could not be urged against paraffin as against 
stearin, or, at least, not to the same extent. 
Mr. Martindale observed that a mixture of stearic 
acid with oleic acid had a melting point which was not 
the mean of the two, but lower than either of them. 
Mr. Bland wished to make a single observation with 
regard to tinctura aurantii recentis mentioned by Professor 
Redwood as proposed to be inserted in the appendix to 
the Pharmacopoeia. The objection to that was the diffi¬ 
culty at certain times of getting the proper orange peel to 
make it with. When it was made with the proper “ biga- 
rade ’ orange peel, it was a most valuable preparation—not 
perhaps altogether in a pharmaceutical point of view, but 
for various purposes. If gentlemen wished to make this 
preparation, now was the time of year when they should 
try their experiments, because the oranges were tolerably 
plentiful, and were to be had at moderate prices. With¬ 
out presuming to anticipate what Professor Redwood’s 
formula would be, he would mention the method he had 
adopted, and that was to take a sharp knife and pare off 
the outer coating of the orange, so as to cut off the whole 
of the vessels containing the oil, putting it into a wide¬ 
mouthed bottle, and adding a sufficient quantity of recti¬ 
fied spirit to cover it ; let it macerate a few days, then 
pour off the tincture and express in the usual way. That 
method furnished a tincture which he had found by ex¬ 
perience to be most valuable. 
The President then read the following letter which 
had been addressed to Professor Redwood by Professor 
Attfield 
“ My Dear Redwood, 
“ For almost the first time for eleven years I must 
be absent from the evening meeting. By letter, there¬ 
fore, I will venture to ask you whether or not in the 
appendix, or in the preface of the forthcoming reprint of 
the Pharmacopoeia, some reference can be made to the 
proposed slight alterations in the chemical nomenclature 
of the work. Similar alterations have already been made 
in the case of the American Pharmacopoeia, and up to the 
present time have been cordially accepted by the medical 
and pharmaceutical practitioners of the United States. 
This method of bringing pharmacopoeial names into har¬ 
mony with the nomenclature of all the modern chemical 
text-books, and therefore with the present state of chemical 
science, has also been fully discussed in this country by 
the leading medical and pharmaceutical authorities, and 
the opinions of all seem united in its favour. Under these 
circumstances would it not be desirable to give a list (it is 
very short) of the proposed alterations, and thus prepare 
all parties for the change—slight though that change 
will be ? 
“ Yours faithfully, 
“John Attfield.” 
Professor Redwood asked Mr. Bland whether, in making 
the tincture of orange peel, it was not necessary to mace¬ 
rate the peel for an unusually long time ? He had just 
stated that it was macerated for a few days. 
Mr. Bland believed a week was quite sufficient for the 
purpose, provided the peel was shaved off into small por¬ 
tions with a sharp knife, which was the way he had always 
done it. 
Mr. Greenish could not help thinking that it would be 
very embarrassing to have two tinctures of orange peel in 
the Pharmacopoeia. Some medical gentlemen would pre¬ 
scribe the tincture, thinking the old form would be dis¬ 
pensed, and others would prescribe, thinking the new tinc¬ 
ture would be dispensed. He hoped they might arrive at 
some definite conclusion on this subject. If the fresh 
orange peel was best, by all means let them have it, and 
omit the old tincture. 
Professor Redwood thought it would be within the ex¬ 
perience of most of those who had had anything to do 
with pharmacy, that many medical men would continue 
to prescribe the old tincture for many years after that 
made from fresh orange peel was introduced into the 
Pharmacopoeia. It appeared to him that opinions were 
pretty equally balanced as to which of these tinctures was 
best. He, therefore, thought that the most simple plan was 
to have both introduced into the Pharmacopoeia, with a 
difference in name that would enable the prescriber to in¬ 
dicate one from the other. They ought to be more cau¬ 
tious in striking articles out of the Pharmacopoeia than in 
putting in new ones. The great difficulty experienced in 
reference to the B. P. of 1864, arose from a number of 
preparations having been struck out, which medical men 
were not at all prepared to relinquish the use of, and which 
had to be introduced again. The great object of the Phar¬ 
macopoeia was to define preparations that were in use ; and 
as long as they continued to be used to any appreciable 
extent, he could not see that any harm resulted from the 
definition being retained in the Pharmacopoeia. If there 
were other preparations of similar descriptions which were 
thought to be, and by many were found to be, superior to 
them, let them be put in competition, and ultimately those 
which were proved to be the best would replace the 
others, and when that replacement had taken place in 
practice, the old preparation which it superseded might 
then be struck out. That was the principle which had 
been adopted in the United States’ Pharmacopoeia, which 
had just been published. The ground upon which he 
should propose to strike any article out of the Pharma¬ 
copoeia, would be that of some serious objection attaching 
to it, or some grave defect in it. There were one or two 
preparations in the present Pharmacopoeia which were 
subject to that objection. For instance the green iodide 
of mercury was a very defective and unstable preparation, 
and could not be administered because it could not be 
kept for administration in the state in which it was de¬ 
scribed in the Pharmacopoeia ; and that was a sufficient 
ground for discarding it. But a mere ordinary galenical 
preparation which might in some respects present similar 
but superior characters, ought not too hastily to displace 
the one that had been long established in use. He was 
not at all strong in the opinion that there was any grea u 
necessity or requirement for the introduction of the tinc¬ 
ture of fresh orange peel, but he thought it would satisfy 
many who very strongly advocated its use. Mr. Martin- 
dale wished to know upon what ground the new prepara¬ 
tions of ipecacuanha—namely, the vinegar and the oxymel 
—were introduced into the Pharmacopoeia, leaving the 
present preparations of ipecacuanha as they existed. Now 
he thought the vinum ipecacuanha was not a preparation 
which was devoid of objection. Although it was an effi¬ 
cient preparation, it was very doubtful whether it was 
one that was constant in its efficacy, for it underwent 
changes in keeping. Moreover, wine was a questionable 
vehicle to use, because there were probably no two phar¬ 
macists making ipecacuanha wine who would use exactly 
the same wine in the preparation, and that of itself 
was an objection. Still ipecacuanha wine would continue 
to be used, and therefore he would leave it in the Pharma¬ 
copoeia ; but as ipecacuanha was such an important 
medical agent, it became a question whether they ought 
not to introduce some preparation that was more reliable, 
more constant, and which presented other characters which. 
