.March 4,1871.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
709 
Cjje |lljitnn;it£utintl Journal. 
- ♦- 
SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1S71. 
Communications for this Journal, and boohs for review,etc., 
should be addressed to the Editor, 17, Bloomsbury Square. 
Instructions from Members and Associates respecting the 
transmission of the Journal should be sent to Elias Brem- 
hidge, Secretary, 17, Bloomsbury Square, W.C. 
Advertisements to Messrs. Churchill, New Burlington 
Street, London, TP. Envelopes indorsed 11 Fhartn. Journ .” 
CHLORAL HYDRATE. 
We have no hesitation in expressing the opinion 
that in regard to purity, all articles of the materia 
medica should he, like C.esar’s wife, above suspicion; 
and holding this opinion, it is with great pleasure 
we find it to be our duty to vindicate the character 
of an important therapeutic agent, which has been 
well described by a leading medical journal as one 
of the first contributions of pure chemistry to our 
materia medica. We are the more ready to perform 
that cljity, since the first specific impeachment of the 
drug was published in the pages of this Journal. 
.Although we have, in consequence, been overwhelmed 
with reclamations, and are now in a position to say 
that there was not really any foundation for the 
alarm and distrust which the statements in that 
article were calculated to excite, we nevertheless do 
not think it necessary to offer any apology for having 
given publicity to the article now referred to, for the 
simple reasons that we regard it as much a duty to 
expose the sale of inferior drugs as it is to defend 
the members of our craft against unfounded imputa¬ 
tions, and that the paper was published in good faith, 
as one bearing on its face evidence of its being im¬ 
portant to both pharmacists and medical men, as 
well as to the general public. 
The letter which appears this week from Mr. 
Mason* sufficiently establishes the fact—already evi¬ 
dent otherwise—that his experiments were affected by 
some source of error that invalidated his results. On 
general grounds this is satisfactory; and we have now 
only to express our regret for any temporary inconve¬ 
nience or prejudice that may have been experienced 
by individual dealers in chloral hydrate. We have 
endeavoured in that respect to do all in our power 
towards correcting the erroneous impression con¬ 
veyed by the paper immediately the error was pointed 
out, and we hope in this way to have satisfied all 
reasonable expectation. But we cannot undertake 
to occupy our space with the lengthy communications 
we have received from some sources, and indeed 
■could not do so without affording ground for the 
charge of inserting trade advertisements out of their 
proper x>laces. We have therefore made an abstract 
* See page 719. 
from the various communications to which we re¬ 
ferred last week, and publish them in the corre¬ 
spondence column.* To conclude this matter, we may 
add here that there is abundant reason to believe 
that chloral hydrate, as now supplied for medicinal 
use, is generally of good quality; and that in 
regard to the chloral alcoliolate, we have only met 
with one sample of it, and do not believe that it is 
to any extent, if at all, substituted for the hydrate. 
spiritus ammonia: aromaticus. 
Our contemporary the Practitioner, in further 
alluding to the subject of the analyses of some sam¬ 
ples of the above preparation which were published 
in its columns and copied into these, is not pleased 
with our remarks upon them, contained in our issue 
of the 21st ult. The writer of the article hi question 
states, there “ surely can be no excuse whatever for 
the chemist who sells as sp. ammoniae co. a prepara¬ 
tion which contains only half, or less than a half, 
the proper quantity of ammonia, and only from 
three-fourths to four-fifths the proper amount of al¬ 
cohol.” Having had our attention thus pointedly 
drawn to the subject, we have taken the trouble to go 
more into detail, and to examine his results carefully. 
In reply to him we might, in the first place, with¬ 
out being accused of having a disposition to quibble, 
with justice, object that the samples were, according 
to his statement, “taken at random from six different 
chemists’ shops,”f as sp>. ammoniae comp., which is 
not official in the British Pharmacopoeia, and was 
only once so in the London Pharmacopoeia—that of 
1787. It was then prepared by a different process 
to the present official one, which ought to contain 
the ammonia in solution as the normal ammonium 
carbonate. In the older preparation two drachms 
of each of the essential oils of lemon and of nutmeg 
were directed to be mixed—not distilled—with two 
Xnnts of spirit of ammonia, this latter preparation 
being prepared by the double decomposition of sal 
ammoniac and potashes dissolved in proof spirit, 
and a certain quantity distilled. It would, there¬ 
fore, contain the ammonia in solution as a mixture 
of the normal and acid carbonates. Sp. ammoniae 
coni}), thus made would also contain a less x>ercentage 
of alcohol than the present spiritus ammoniae aro¬ 
maticus. There are pharmacists who keep both the 
above x>reparations, and if sp. ammoniae comp, is pre¬ 
scribed—as it often is—sp. ammoniae comp, is dis¬ 
pensed. They would no more think of substituting 
the new for the old preparation than they would 
pilula ferri carbonatis for pilula ferri composita. 
* See page 720. 
f One of these, where, according to the published analyses, 
the worst sample was purchased,—that of 44, Southampton 
Row, Bloomsbury,—is an open surgery. No such name as 
John F. Staines appears on the Register of Chemists and 
Druggists at this address; nor yet does it appear on the Me¬ 
dical Register, although the facia states that the proprietor is 
a surgeon. 
