176  British  Pharmaceutical  Codex.        { ^m £g»rm- 
class  of  preparations  has  little  or  nothing  to  commend  it.  The 
addition  of  alcohol  to  a  volatile  oil  in  the  making  of  medicated 
waters  is  of  doubtful  utility,  and  the  use  of  calcium  phosphate  as  an 
absorbent  powder  is  open  to  the  objection  that  this  substance,  in 
addition  to  being  subject  to  contaminations,  is  itself  slightly  soluble 
in  water. 
A  more  valuable  addition,  and  one  that  pharmacists  and  others  in 
this  country  would,  no  doubt,  desire  to  have  an  authoritative 
standard  for,  is  : 
NORMAL  SARINS  SOLUTION,  SOLUTION  SAUNA,  B.P.C. 
Sodium  chloride  0*95 
Water,  sufficient  to  produce  100. 
Boil  the  water,  cool  and  dissolve  the  salt. 
There  are  a  number  of  miscellaneous  preparations  that  are  of 
interest  at  the  present  time,  in  connection  with  our  efforts  to  popu- 
larize open-formula  preparations.  An  alkaline  antiseptic  preparation 
somewhat  similar  in  character  to  the  alkaline  antiseptic  of  the 
National  Formulary  is : 
COMPOUND  GLYCERIN  OF  THYMOL,  GLYCERINUM  THYMOL  COMPOSITUM,  B.P.C. 
Sodium  bicarbonate    .   i'oo 
"      biborate   2*00 
"      benzoate   075 
"      salicylate   0*50 
Menthol   o  03 
Thymol   0*05 
Oil  of  pine    0.05 
Eucalyptol   0*13 
Oil  of  wintergreen   0*03 
Glycerin   "   10  "oo 
Alcohol   2.50 
Solution  of  carmine   0*50 
Distilled  water,  sufficient  to  produce  100. 
Dissolve  the  sodium  salts  in  the  water,  add  the  glycerin  and  solu- 
tion of  carmine ;  then  add  the  menthol,  thymol  and  oils  previously 
dissolved  in  the  alcohol. 
This  preparation  will  be  found  to  be  generally  more  acceptable 
than  the  corresponding  preparation  of  the  National  Formulary. 
This  suggests  the  suspicion  that  somewhere  in  the  transcribing  of  the 
formula  for  the  liquor  antisepticus  alkalinus,  N.F.,  the  quantities 
for  the  sodium  benzoate  and  the  sodium  biborate  have  become  trans- 
