160 
LIQUOR  OPII  SEDATIVUS. 
The  quantities  operated  upon  were  ten  and  twenty  grammes, 
and  two  or  three  such  portions  were  taken  of  each  sample  of 
opium.    The  process  used  was  that  officinal  in  the  U.  S.  P. 
Recently  in  conversation  with  Prof.  F.  F.  Mayer,  he  stated 
that  the  process  did  not  yield  accurate  results,  and  suggested  a 
process  which  he  has  used  in  such  analysis  for  .some  time  past. 
Since  that  conversation  I  have  not  been  sufficiently  at  leisure  to 
take  up  the  subject,  and  at  my  request  Prof.  Mayer  examined 
two  specimens  which  I  procured  for  him  from  two  of  our  best 
wholesale  houses. 
No.  1  contained  13-60  per  cent,  morphia, 
u  2       "  9-04 
To  the  second  portion  of  the  query,  "  what  is  the  most  ready 
means  of  determining  it  ?"  I  am  not  now  prepared  to  give  a 
reply  satisfactory  to  myself.  The  doubts  thrown  on  my  mind  as 
to  the  perfect  reliability  of  the  process  of  the  U.  S.  P.  recently, 
by  conversations  with  those  more  familiar  with  the  subject,  and 
the  limited  time  at  my  disposal,  have  decided  me  to  leave  this 
portion  of  the  query  for  further  investigation,  and  another  year 
I  will  continue  the  subject. — Proc.  Am.  Pharm.  Assoc. ^  1868. 
LIQUOR  OPII  SEDATIYUS. 
By  T.  B.  Groves,  F.C.S. 
The  valuable  paper  of  Messrs.  Deane  and  Brady,  "  Micro- 
scopic Research  in  relation  to  Pharmacy,"  read  at  the  Pharma- 
ceutical Conference  Meeting  at  Bath,  probably  set  many  ex- 
perimenting in  the  same  direction  ;  amongst  them,  myself. 
On  returning  from  Bath,  I  tried  my  hand  on  liq.  opii  sed., 
but  the  results  were  not,  I  thought,  worthy  of  publication.  An 
additional  fact  or  two  having  recently  come  under  notice,  I  now 
olfer  a  short  rhiwie  of  experiments  made  during  the  years 
1864-65. 
Two  fluidounces  of  laudanum,  mixed  with  four  ounces  of 
water,  were  evaporated  to  an  ounce  and  a  half,  and  set  aside  for 
a  day. 
During  the  evaporation,  and  subsequently,  it  deposited  a 
considerable  amount  of  quasi-resinous  matter. 
