958 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
fMay SI, 1873. 
strength, if the presence of a considerable quantity of 
chloride of sodium is not taken into account. The moist 
pepsin, after pressing, still retains over three times its 
weight of water, which can only be separated by evapora¬ 
tion ; and as this water contains at least one-fourth of its 
weight of salt, the amount of this will perhaps equal half 
the weight of real pepsin present. 
Therefore, the strength of the dried residue is best de- 
tei mined by means of an assay, and its final strength 
adjusted with the addition of milk sugar, so that ten 
grains of it shall at least dissolve 120 grains of coagulated 
albumen. In an extensive practice, with the necessary 
experience, this is not absolutely necessary, because the 
concentrated brine adhering to the pepsin can, in a great 
measure, be replaced by a much weaker saline solution, 
and afterwards pressed and dried. Most of the salty 
liquid can also be easily removed, by spreading the 
pressed pepsin upon abundant folds of bibulous paper, 
and allowing the liquid to be absorbed, and when quite 
dry mixing with the necessary amount of sugar of milk. 
( old weather is the only proper season in which to under¬ 
take the manufacture of pepsin, as putrefied material is 
not at. all serviceable, and in warm weather it is nearly 
impossible to prevent rapid decomposition. 
It. will amply pay any pharmacist to make his own 
pepsin, if he has a sufficient demand for it, because the 
process is so simple and inexpensive and the yield so 
plentiful. The product in saccharated pepsin, procured 
from six stomachs by means of four macerations, is as 
follows :—First maceration, 16 ounces ; second macera¬ 
tion, 12.4 ounces; third maceration, 8 ounces; fourth 
maceration, 4 ounces : total, 404 ounces. The average 
yield of six stomachs by two macerations is 20 ounces, 
and where raw material is abundant only two macerations 
are usually performed, since it is difficult ordinarily to 
continue the process unaccompanied by putrefactive ten¬ 
dency. Thus. it. will be seen that, aside from labour, very 
little outlay is incurred ; that the remuneration for ex¬ 
tracting pepsin from six stomachs is twenty dollars, at the 
regular wholesale rates. 
.Several attempts were made to obtain pepsin in a con¬ 
centrated liquid form, having the same strength as the 
saccharated. For this purpose the moist pepsin with 
adhering salt was dried, and then mixed 'with sufficient 
muriatic acid and glycerine to make the liquid weigh ten 
times as. much as the pepsin employed. This did not 
give satisfactory results. The moist pepsin was then 
treated, at once with acid and glycerine, without being 
first dried, the. strength being adjusted from the data of 
the usual loss in water that moist pepsin sustains. This 
mixture, after long standing, did not form a clear solu¬ 
tion ; it filtered slowly and with great difficulty, and the 
remarkable fact was ascertained that the filtrate would 
not. dissolve coagulated albumen. But the unfiltered 
liquid showed an undiminished activity when diluted and 
tested with albumen. Through this result it was found 
that if the liquid, be it acidulated water or glycerine, is 
increased to forty times the weight of the pepsin, a per¬ 
fect solution can be made, which possesses the required 
activity, only it is but one-fourth as strong as the saccha¬ 
rated powder. No trial was made whether a pepsin freer 
from, salt would make a more concentrated and perfect 
solution. But even this weaker solution, containing 2^ 
per cent. of.real pepsin,—equal to 25 per cent, of the*sac¬ 
charated,—is perfectly stable, and for the purpose of 
making more dilute solutions of pepsin it is far preferable 
to the powdered. 
In referring - to a 44 pulverulent pepsin ” met with in the 
American market, which has attracted considerable atten¬ 
tion by its bitterness, the author states, that upon exa¬ 
mination he has found this bitterness to be due to the 
presence of strychnia. An opinion to this effect had 
previously been expressed by Mr. A. E. Ebert at the 
meeting of the American Pharmaceutical Conference at 
Baltimore. 
LIEBIG’S FIRST VISIT TO PARIS. 
The following personal reminiscence of the late Baron 
Liebig. is from the pen of Dr. Quesneville, and is pub¬ 
lished in the May number of the Moniteur Stientifiquc- 
Quesneville :— 
‘‘The editor of this journal had the happy privilege of 
assisting Liebig in his earliest researches—by washing his 
glasses and running to fetch the articles required by him— 
when, in 1822 and 1823, he came to Paris to perfect 
himself in the study of chemistry. 
“ Gauthier de Claubry, who is still living, and was then 
a man of considerable reputation and usually waited upon 
after, the grand visit had been made to Thenard, presented 
Liebig to my father. At that time there was in Paris 
scarcely any place but the private laboratory in the Rue 
du Colombier where a chemist could work freely; that is 
to say, without a protector taking the half of his labour 
for chemicals used and apparatus borrowed. This labora¬ 
tory was one of the appurtenances of the manufactory of 
chemical products which my father had purchased from 
Vauquelin and the heirs of Fourcroy. Gauthier de 
Claubry, who was acquainted with this laboratory, where 
Vauquelin, Chevreul, Serrulas, and himself had laboured 
and taught, mentioned it to Liebig, and it was in this 
commodious place that the illustrious chemist, newly 
arrived in the great city, prepared his first work on the 
fulminates. 
4 ‘ At this time I was twelve years of age, and it was I 
that carried to the great German the articles required for 
his experiments. My mother also conceived a great 
liking for him and charged herself with his firing. ° She 
filled his stove, and even fitted up at his hotel a fireplace 
a la prussienne : for the young chemist was not rich, and 
was completely without fuel in the middle of a most 
rigorous winter. Liebig laboured there one entire year, 
and when his memoir was finished he dedicated it to 
Thenard. Gay-Lussac was astonished by it, and requested 
Liebig to communicate to him his ideas: the second in¬ 
vestigation was made in conjunction with Gay-Lussac and 
in his laboratory. 
“ Liebig never forgot his early days in Paris and 
the assistance he received from my father, so that when 
he learned from. G-erhardt, in 1840, that I had founded 
the Revue Sdentifique, and that I had engaged the latter 
to abstract foreign memoirs for its pages, he wrote to me 
at once as follows :— 
It will not be necessary to send you my journal by 
post, for, as I have already promised, you will receive 
proofs of all original memoirs before the numbers of the 
journals containing them are printed and published; in 
this manner you will be able to make these memoirs 
known , to the French public four or six weeks earlier. 
This winter I have had the good fortune to count among 
my pupils six very clever young chemists; I have proposed 
to them to undertake together a thorough investigation cf 
the fat bodies, and this work, commenced eight months 
since, is now nearly finished.’ 
. 44 Liebig finished his letter with the following declara¬ 
tion, which it is curious to read in the present day:— 
4 \ ou may, my dear Quesneville, give provisional in¬ 
formation as to the results, and I will send you the com¬ 
plete memoirs as soon as I can. You will see, though, 
that while they were occupying themselves at Paris in 
useless discussions on the theory of substitutions, we cul¬ 
tivated, our field with organized forces. To-day we collect 
the fruit. Can you be astonished that I have taken so 
little part in these combats fought about theories so 
ephemeral, and that in my book I have not even spoken 
of them ? It was because I would not draw off the atten¬ 
tion of my readers towards matters so purely personal. In 
a couple of years they will not be spoken of, and the im¬ 
portance attached to them to-day will have vanished like 
a dream.’ ” 
