222  Adulterations  of  Drugs  and  Chemicals.  {Am'Mayr"iS)8arm 
STRAMONIUM  LEAVES. 
Some  time  ago  we  received  a  sample  of  a  shipment  of  stramonium 
leaves  in  our  laboratory  to  be  identified  and  assayed.  The  drug 
was  very  dry,  broken  to  small  fragments,  and  it  was,  therefore,  diffi- 
cult to  get  hold  of  a  good  specimen.  The  drug  contained  many 
flowers,  which  were  identified  as  stramonium  flowers.  At  the  same 
time  we  found  some  capsules  containing  small  seeds ;  these  were 
identified  as  hyoscyamus  seeds.  We  then  made  four  assays  of  the 
drug  and  found  an  average  of  0-262  per  cent,  mydriatic  alkaloids. 
This  showed  that  the  larger  part  of  the  drug  was  stramonium,  as 
hyoscyamus  seldom  assays  higher  than  o-io  per  cent.  We  most  cer- 
tainly rejected  the  whole  shipment,  because  it  was  impossible  to 
separate  the  stramonium  from  the  hyoscyamus  and  the  analytical 
department  would  not  take  the  responsibility  upon  itself  to  accept 
the  drug  as  stramonium. 
CONIUM  LEAVES. 
All  the  samples  received  by  us  during  the  past  year  or  two  have 
been  either  entirely  inert  or  contained  only  small  traces  of  coniine. 
The  leaves  were  evidently  not  adulterated  and  showed  the  character- 
istics of  conium  leaves.  I  myself  once  supervised  the  harvesting  of 
conium  leaves  in  Germany  many  years  ago.  The  laborers  put  the 
leaves,  as  soon  as  they  were  picked,  into  potato  or  grain  sacks,  and 
the  men  were  told  not  to  press  the  leaves  too  hard  into  the  sacks. 
There  is  considerable  heat  produced  in  only  a  few  minutes,  if  the 
leaves  are  pressed  too  hard,  and  by  this  heat  the  coniine  is  either 
evaporated  or  decomposed.  Assays  made  from  leaves  taken  from 
different  sacks  showed  plainly  that  leaves  collected  on  the  same 
field  assayed  much  higher  if  pressure,  and  therefore  heat,  had  been 
avoided.  I  think  the  right  way  of  collecting  the  leaves  on  the  field 
has  much  to  do  with  their  respective  activity  or  inertness,  although 
climate  and  weather  conditions  have  much  to  do  with  the  alkaloidal 
strength  of  the  drug. 
POWDERED  LICORICE  ROOT. 
Six  samples  submitted  at  the  same  time  from  different  sources 
showed  under  the  microscope  the  characteristics  of  glycyrrhiza. 
All  showed  distinctly  the  yellow-wood  fibres,  the  brown  cork  cells, 
