599 
ON MEDICINAL ACONITINE AND ITS SUBSTITUTES. 
By William Procter, Jun. 
The high price and variable quality of aconitine has ren¬ 
dered its use as a medicinal agent so expensive and uncer¬ 
tain, that many physicians never employ it, depending 
upon the stronger tinctures of the root, in cases requiring the 
external use of aconite. In the manufacture of organic 
chemical products very much is added to their cost by the 
complications and loss rendered necessary or unavoidable in 
their purification from colouring matter or strongly adherent 
resinous or other inert substances in minute quantity, which, 
while their presence impairs the market value of the che¬ 
micals, often do not greatly reduce their medicinal power. 
In asking the attention of pharmaceutists to the following 
modification of Headland’s process for aconitine, it is with 
the view of furnishing them with a practicable means of sup¬ 
plying their own wants in regard to this potent alkaloid. 
It is proper to premise that aconite root contains a green 
fixed oil, solid below 70° Fahr., which it is important to 
remove entirely from the solution before attempting to extract 
the alkaloid by the agency of ether, a precaution only par¬ 
tially carried out in the published process of Dr. Headland. 
When a tincture of aconite root in alcohol of sp. gr. *835, 
whether prepared in the cold by percolation or by digestion 
at the temperature of boiling alcohol, as recommended b}^ 
Headland, is evaporated to one half the weight of the root 
treated, a quantity of the green, fatty oil above noticed sepa¬ 
rates and floats upon the surface of the liquid. Most of this 
may be strained out if the temperature is below 70° Fahr., 
but a portion, together with some resin, remains intimately 
combined in the clear liquid, and it is this which is not re¬ 
moved previously to adding the ammonia, in the process of 
Headland. Further, aconitic acid is soluble in ether, and 
aconitate of ammonia may be slightly so, in which case it 
also would tend to contaminate the aconitine in that process. 
Take of aconite root, in fine powder, five pounds ; alcohol 
sp. gr. *835, ether and strong solution of ammonia, of each a j 
sufficient quantity. Moisten the aconite root with two pints of J 
alcohol, and let it stand twenty-four hours in a covered vessel, 
then, having packed it closely in a cylindrical percolator, pour 
on alcohol until three gallons have slowly passed, or until the 
root is so far exhausted that the passing liquid has little, if 
any, taste of aconite. To the tincture thus formed add an 
ounce of lime, previously hj r drated and in powder, and agi- 
