NOTE  ON  AROMATIC  SULPHURIC  ACID.  247 
instead  of  for  one  hour,  and  on  the  following  morning  found  the 
walls  of  the  bottle  lined  with  crystals.  These  he  collected,  puri- 
fied, and  forwarded  to  me,  with  the  request  that  I  would  ascer- 
tain their  nature,  and  thus  be  enabled  to  say  whether  or  not  • 
their  separation  involved  deterioration  of  the  extract.  They 
were  found  to  be  the  inert  salt  sulphate  of  potassium. 
This  note  is  published  for  two  reasons :  first,  to  assure  any 
pharmacist  who  may  have  met  with  these  crystals  that  their 
presence  or  absence  in  ergot  or  its  preparations  is  of  no  thera- 
peutic importance ;  second,  to  draw  attention  to  a  possible,  per- 
haps a  general  constituent  not  previously  noticed  by  chemists 
who  liave  analysed  ergot.  Mr.  Romans  tells  me  the  crystals 
amounted  in  weight  to  about  3  per  cent,  of  the  ergot  employed. 
— London  Pharm.  Journ.^  March,  1869. 
NOTE  ON  AROMATIC  SULPHURIC  ACID. 
By  Professor  Attfield. 
A  short  time  ago  I  was  asked  whether  or  not  the  official* 
aromatic  sulphuric  acid  contained  sulphovinic  acid.  Aromatic 
sulphuric  acid  is  made  by  mixing  gradually  3  volumes  of  sul- 
phuric acid  with  40  of  rectified  spirit,  and  then  adding  certain 
aromatics  (cinnamon  and  ginger).  Sulphovinic  acid  is  also  made 
by  mixing  sulphuric  acid  and  spirit,  but  the  volumes  should  be 
equal,  the  alcohol  as  nearly  absolute  as  convenient,  a  tempera- 
ture considerably  above  that  of  boiling  water  applied  to  the 
mixture,  and  the  material  allowed  to  digest  together  for  twenty- 
four  hours :  even  then  the  whole  of  the  alcohol  is  not  converted 
into  sulphovinic  acid.  From  these  facts  we  should  infer  that 
sulphovinic  acid  is  not  formed  to  any  considerable  extent  in 
making  aromatic  sulphuric  acid.  Still  there  is  some  rise  of 
temperature  in  mixing  3  volumes  of  sulphuric  acid  with  40  of 
*  The  Pharmacopceia  and  all  in  it  is  official  [office,  Fr.  from  L.  officium, 
an  office).  There  are  many  things  which  in  pharmacy  are  officinal  (Fr. 
from  L.  officina,  a  shop)  but  not  official.  To  restrict  the  word  officinal, 
first,  to  the  contents  of  a  pharmacist's  shop,  and,  second,  to  that  portion 
of  the  contents  which  is  Pharmacopoeial  is  radically  wrong,  and  in  future 
should  be  avoided — J.  A. 
