ON YELLOW WAX FOR CERATES. 
77 
About eight months ago I made some simple cerate, using some yellow wax, for ex¬ 
hibition at the last meeting of the American Pharmaceutical Association, a specimen of 
which is on the table, and will be found to have kept well, and in fact is as good, if not 
better, than the specimen of officinal cerate made about six weeks since. 
I have used yellow wax for several years in making “ Glycerine Cream,” and have 
never known it to spoil, while in “ Cold Cream,” made with white wax, the change of 
age is readily detected. This difference is no doubt due in part to the preservative in- 
ffuence of the glycerine. 
In making suppositories, I have for a long time used the yellow instead of white wax, 
for giving proper consistence to the cocoa butter, and find a decided advantage. 
In the former case, the original chocolate odour is well preserved, while in the latter 
there is a rank odour, like that of stale burnt coffee. 
About two years ago, while the armies for and against the Eepublic were contending 
about Spottsylvania, I was one of a committee sent from our city to Fredericksburg to 
care for the sick and wounded. Having a knowledge of medicines, I was at once 
assigned as hospital steward in the main hospital of the second corps, then actively 
engaged. Large supplies of dressing were required, and I had occasion to open and in¬ 
spect many cans of simple cerate, some bearing the labels of eminent houses here, 
others that of the U. S. Army Laboratory ; all, no doubt, made according to the officinal 
formula, and of selected materials, but there was scarcely any of it I considered fit to dress 
sores and wounds, requiring a bland cerate free from irritating qualities, as the Ceratum 
Adipis is intended to be. Let us for a moment compare the virtues of the two. 
Selected yellow wax, having been subjected to but one simple manipulation, contains 
a trace of honey, to its advantage rather than otherwise, a peculiar balsamic principle, 
which gives it a delightful odour, and tends to preserve, not only the wax but all its 
compounds also, and a yellow colouring-matter which is considered its objectionable 
feature. 
Commercial white wax, having passed through several manipulations, nearly always 
contains a considerable portion of tallow, paraffine, or other sophistication, is deprived 
of all its honey, and nearly, if not quite all its balsamic principles, and is so deteriorated 
by the bleaching process that a slightly rancid odour is nearly always observable, and, 
in my judgment, it produces a strong tendency to rancidity in all its compounds. It 
has no particular advantage over the yellow, except in point of colour, which is a very 
doubtful advantage, considering the sacrifice of useful features peculiar to the latter. 
What does the suffering patient care for the colour of an ointment, if it is adapted 
to his case and heals his wound ? And I would ask what good and sufficient reason is 
there for throwing aside the peculiar virtues of yellow wax, and making a really infe¬ 
rior cerate, liable to constant deterioration, in order to have it white ? 
Mr. Maisch said that he had no practical experience with the substitution in oint¬ 
ments and cerates, of yellow for white wax. Mr. Bringhurst had referred to the ranci¬ 
dity of all the simple cerate made by private parties, and at the U. S. Army Labo¬ 
ratory, which he sa^v on the battle-field. The speaker, said, however, that he had 
examined many samples of so-called simple cerate used by the army, and had found 
quite a number furnished by houses considered respectable, which did not contain a 
trace of wax, which was substituted by Japan wax and paraffine. This fraudulent 
preparation is easily recognized by its semi-transparent appearance, while true simple 
cerate is opaque. Japan wax is a fat, usually more or less rancid the way it appears in 
commerce, and must, therefore, necessarily hasten the decomposition of lard. Paraffine 
renders lard rancid still more rapidly. These facts account in part for the experience of 
Mr. Bringhurst. 
Some private houses had furnished to the army true simple cerate, and all made at 
the U. S. Army Laboratory in this city was prepared strictly according to the Pharma¬ 
copoeia. In 1863, shortly after the Laboratory went into operation, the speaker had 
met with some difficulty in obtaining pure lard, the commercial being found to contain 
a fraudulent admixture of from 12 to 16 per cent, of water. Subsequently, however, 
pure lard was prepared by the manufacturers for this institution. Although the 
material was used strictly in the proportion of the national Pharmacopoeia, still the 
manipulation differed somewhat from that followed by pharmaceutists on the small 
scale. The material was fused by steam, then stirred until it became so thick that, on 
being run into cold tin cans, it would congeal in a few minutes. Made in this way, it 
