THE PURITY OF OPIUM AND OTHER POWDERS. 
275 
mation, must be decomposed and a second estimate undertaken. It would 
probably be left to guess-work, for in the small way it would be impossible to 
bring each to the balance. Where then is accuracy F Gone. It may not be 
a bad test of the general goodness of an extract, to ascertain if it contains any 
alkaloid at all, for most of those bodies are readily alterable by bad manipula¬ 
tion. Such a course has been recommended by M. Lepage, of Gisors. But that 
could only be safely relied on when the source of the extract is known. How 
easy to add to a bad extract a few grains of alkaloid, no matter what, for the 
purpose of deception. In answer to a demand for extracts containing alka¬ 
loids, such a trade trick is not beyond the bounds of probability. 
In order to isolate the alkaloid from the compound for the purpose of iden¬ 
tification, I find it better to remove the iodine than the mercury. The op¬ 
posite course has been recommended, but hydriodates of the alkaloids are 
generally very intractable, so I decompose them with acetate of lead or nitrate 
of silver. In applying the latter, it is not necessary, provided the iodobydrar- 
gyrate be recently precipitated, to dissolve it in alcohol. By merely acidu¬ 
lating the liquid with acetic acid in which it is suspended, and adding enough 
nitrate of silver (the limit may be ascertained by chromate of potass) to ab¬ 
sorb all the chlorine and iodine, the alkaloid is obtained in aqueous solution 
in company with nitrate of mercury. This plan succeeds with the strychnia 
compound, which, being very sparingly soluble in boiling alcohol, is otherwise 
difficult of attack. Then by adding carbonate of potass and ether, or other 
solvent, the alkaloid is obtained in a state of purity. By the other method 
(removing the mercury by sulphide of ammonium, etc.) the yield is contami¬ 
nated with, or consists entirely of hydriodate. I was for a long time deceived 
by the hydriodate of aconitina refusing to be decomposed by ammonia, and 
until I accidentally observed its reaction with lead, set it down for a resi- 
noid. 
Although beyond the proper limits of my paper, already I fear inordinately 
long, I cannot conclude without confessing that although I do not believe in 
volumetric or any other chemical testing of the strength of extracts, I am 
fully alive to the necessity of ascertaining their degree of 'potency. I am con¬ 
fident that many of the extracts in the market are comparatively valueless, 
and one remembers the dictum of Mr. Donovan respecting all the preparations 
of henbane. 
Then, I say, try the physiological test. Systematize the assay of the 
poisonous extracts on the bodies of the lower animals, not cats or dogs,—they 
are too robust and suffer much,—but mice and birds, the “ small deer ” of the 
“ varmint ” class, who are easily obtained, very sensitive to poisons, and who 
finally must by this time have accepted killing by poison as a strictly natural 
death. 
Weymouth. __ 
REPORT ON THE PURITY OF COMMERCIAL POWDER OF 
OPIUM, IPECACUANHA, AND JALAP. 
BY MR. F. M. RIMMINGTON. 
(Read at the Bath Meeting of the British Pharmaceutical Conference , Sept. 18G4.) 
The samples were procured from different towns, and from different chemists 
in each town-, and the mode of analysis adopted, though chiefly microsco¬ 
pical, includes the estimation of the ash. I have done this, not from a 
conviction that any slight variation in the amount of ash would be proof of 
sophistication, but from a belief that it might afford a sort of presumptive 
evidence, and also yield some fact of interest in such a series of analyses. 
The estimation of extractive matter, or active principle, has been altogether 
