THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[March 9, 1872. 
734 < 
pleasure of listening to such papers "by Dr. Garrod, Dr. 
Harley, and more recently by other workers, and those 
papers did a vast deal directly for the advancement 
<of the philosophical practice of physic, and indirectly 
for the advancement of what their American brethren 
■called “elegant pharmacy.” But, from some cause 
or other, those who were able to produce such papers 
as he had indicated, after a time left the good 
work. He sincerely hoped Dr. Duckworth, however, 
would continue to make researches in a similar di¬ 
rection to that in which he had so recently been 
■engaged, and give them the benefit of his labours 
.at their evening meetings and in the pages of the 
Journal, thus benefiting the whole of pharmacy. Another 
matter that suggested itself in hearing this paper was 
this, that whereas in ipecacuanha and its preparations 
they were dealing with substances which varied in quality 
In respect of a well-defined active principle, they should 
more frequently use the active principle itself, if capable 
•of isolation in a pure form. He gathered from Dr. 
Duckworth’s paper that in ipecacuanha there was’ no 
other active principle than the alkaloid emetia. Now if 
the active principle of ipecacuanha was emetia, and if 
■emetia could be separated, as Dr. Duckworth told them 
it could by practical pharmacists, then why not use 
•emetia itself, dissolved in appropriate menstrua, instead 
of using these different preparations of ipecacuanha. 
They used ipecacuanha, a material that was admitted to 
vary to some extent, and they attempted to exhaust it, 
though not always successfully, by different solvents ; 
they endeavoured to exhaust it by processes which 
could not be depended on, and produced an article which 
varied according to the greater or less extent to which 
it was exposed to the air, and to other influences, and 
thus ultimately obtained a preparation which necessarily 
•varied in activity. It varied either because the solvent 
of the active principle went out of solution, and there¬ 
fore was followed by a deposition of the active principle 
itself; or because after some time there was a combina¬ 
tion of the alkaloid with some constituent of sherry, or 
other menstruum with formation of a precipitate; or, 
thirdly, because the natural salt of the alkaloid was 
carried into solution by soluble bodies, itself not being 
particularly soluble, and afterwards came out, as many 
.substances were well known to do, when their relations 
to cohesion readjusted themselves. So that they had a 
preparation which might vary, because the original sub¬ 
stance varied; because the process was not trustworthy, 
and because when they had produced the article they 
h.ad any one of two or three changes going on. What 
reason was there why they should not obtain from 
ipecacuanha its sole active principle, if emetia were 
its sole active principle, and employ that as they 
had already done other alkaloids ? He had been told 
that the different preparations of cinchona bark had 
been, for many years, gradually going out of use, and 
that quinine was now chiefly employed. At all events 
it would be admitted that since quinine had been isolated, 
•cinchona bark, or its products, had been used to an im¬ 
mensely greater extent than before. It was to the ad¬ 
vantage of the therapeutist that he should have an active 
principle, that was always constant in its properties, 
rather than preparations of that principle, each liable to 
vary in activity from several causes. It had sometimes 
been urged against this reasoning that increased ex¬ 
pense was involved in isolating these substances, but he 
did not admit that as a legitimate argument at all; for 
if pharmacists were true to themselves and one another, 
the question of cost only affected the public, who were 
■ever ready to pay professional men and tradesmen good 
fees for good service. Nay, in some trades the leading 
;and successful principle was to employ as much capital 
and make everything as costly as possible. 
Mr. Hanbury thought the discussion was diverting 
.into irrelevant matter. The question asked by Mr. 
Williams was in what way the emetine in these roots 
might be estimated. A few years ago a French chemist, 
M. Lafort, examined the ipecacuanha of Brazil and New 
Granada, in order to settle which was the stronger. The 
plan he adopted was to precipitate the emetine by tannic 
acid, and to corroborate the results by another series of 
experiments, in which the alkaloid was thrown down by 
nitrate of potash. In that way he showed that the ipeca¬ 
cuanha of New Granada was somewhat less rich in alka¬ 
loid than that of Brazil. He (Mr. Hanbury) thought 
Prof. Attfield was a little mistaken in saying that ipeca¬ 
cuanha was a variable drug. As imported it was sin¬ 
gularly free from adulteration. Now and then a package 
arrived of what is called striated ipecacuanha, or one of 
the other roots used as ipecacuanha in Brazil; but no 
druggist was so little experienced or so ignorant that he 
could be deceived in a sample of ipecacuanha. It pos¬ 
sessed characteristics so striking that there was no diffi¬ 
culty in recognizing it, and it never came mixed with 
other roots. 
Professor Attfield said he had been told that evening, 
by a gentleman who dealt very largely in ipecacuanha, 
that the powder of ipecacuanha was a most variable pre¬ 
paration, because, somehow or other, the varieties which 
honourable traders would not buy did get purchased, and 
came into pharmacy in the form of preparations of ipe¬ 
cacuanha. 
Professor Bentley entirely agreed with Mr. Hanbury 
with regard to the freedom of ipecacuanha root from 
adulteration. It was quite true that striated ipeca¬ 
cuanha wasfoccasionally imported, but as striated and 
not as true ipecacuanha, just the same as undulated 
ipecacuanha, which was, however, rarely seen at the 
present day. He rose especially to ask a question of 
Professor Attfield; but before doing so he should like 
to express his thanks to Dr. Duckworth for the paper 
with which they had just been favoured. There was a 
time when they always had at their meetings some lead¬ 
ing physicians who took great interest in therapeutics; 
and they were not only interested in their communi¬ 
cations, but they learnt from them that which did not 
come specially within their province, although it was 
important they should know something on that head; 
and this Society, on the other hand, gave them infor¬ 
mation upon matters in which the physician was not so 
specially instructed. He trusted that Dr. Duckworth’s 
paper would be followed on many occasions by physicians 
treating not only upon the preparation of remedies, but 
enlightening them also as to their physiological and thera¬ 
peutical actions. Mr. Williams had asked how Professor 
Attfield obtained emetia. If he (Professor Bentley) re¬ 
collected Professor Attfield’s paper rightly, it was an 
assay not only of the true ipecacuanha, but also of striated 
ipecacuanha; and he thought that so far as the per¬ 
centage of the impure emetia of Pelletier was concerned, 
the observations of Professor Attfield agreed substan¬ 
tially with those of Pelletier. Thus Professor Attfield 
found 16 or 17, and Pelletier from 14 to 17 per cent, 
in the ipecacuanha; and with regard to striated ipeca¬ 
cuanha, Pelletier found about 9 per cent, and Professor 
Attfield about 10. But in the percentage of pure emetia 
the experiments of Pelletier and Professor Attfield gave 
very different results, Pelletier only finding about 1 per 
cent., whereas, if he remembered rightly, Professor 
Attfield had found as much as 10 per cent, in true ipe¬ 
cacuanha, and nearly 3 per cent, in striated ipecacuanha. 
Professor Bentley would like to ask Professor Attfield 
whether he was satisfied that ipecacuanha yielded so 
large a percentage of pure emetia. 
Professor Attfield explained that in the paper alluded 
to, he had simply insisted that, at least, the amount of 
nitrogen in the aqueous extract of the residue of the 
tincture of ipecacuanha should be estimated before 
deciding on the value of a sample of ipecacuanha. He 
had thus shown that the 16 per cent, of emetia obtained 
by Richard and Barruel, as well as Magendie and 
Pelletier, must be read as 10 per cent.; and the 9 per 
