Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
January,  1910.  J 
Maceration  and  Percolation. 
35 
The  disadvantages  of  maceration  can  be  briefly  summed  up  as 
follows:  (i)  the  shaking;  (2)  the  expressing  and  filtering;  (3) 
the  retention  of  strong  menstruum  in  the  marc  and  the  indefinite 
finished  product.  The  advantages  of  maceration  are  said  to  be:  (1) 
the  drug  does  not  have  to  be  a  fine  and  uniform  powder;  (2)  the 
process  requires  less  skill  and  care  in  the  manipulation  than  per- 
colation; (3)  there  is  less  loss  of  alcoholic  menstruum  than  by 
percolation. 
Before  leaving  the  subject  of  maceration  I  will  say  a  few  words 
about  digestion,  not  Cleopatra's  digestion,  as  cited  before,  but 
pharmaceutical  digestion.  Latin:  digestio,  derived  from  digerere, 
to  distribute,  which  is  a  maceration  carried  on  at  a  higher  degree 
of  temperature.  Some  of  the  pharmacopoeias  specify  the  tem- 
perature as: 
Ph.  Ned.  IV      Ph.  Aust.  VIII  U.S.  P.  VIII 
Maceration  i5°-2  5°       not  over  200        i5°-2o°  in  a  shady  place. 
Digestion  3  5°-45°       n°t  over  500 
Infusion  qo°-98° 
If  a  higher  temperature  is  employed,  as  in  the  case  of  Warburg's 
tincture  N.F.  Ill  (650),  it  is  best  to  attach  an  upright  or  reflux 
condenser  or  simply  a  glass  tube  about  4-6  feet  long,  so  as  to  prevent 
the  loss  of  alcohol. 
PERCOLATION. 
Etymology :  per,  through,  and  colare,  strain. 
A  vast  volume  of  literature  exists  on  this  interesting  subject, 
and  the  brightest  minds  of  all  nations  have  spent  a  "  lifetime  of 
labor  "  in  trying  to  perfect  percolation  and  to  enlighten  us.  Among 
these  the  following  deserve  special  mentioning:  Boullay,  Robiquet, 
Guillermond,  Pelletier,  Pelouze,  and  Soubeiran  of  France,  where  per- 
colation is  said  to  have  been  originated,  which,  however,  I  find  to  be 
fallacious;  Redwood,  Proctor,  Maben,  and  Ince,  of  Great  Britain; 
Dieterich,  Geiger,  and  Marpmann,  of  Germany;  Duhamel,  Procter, 
Parrish,  Grahame,  Squibb,  Diehl,  Oldberg,  Lloyd,  and  Remington, 
in  the  LTnited  States.  The  American  Pharmaceutical  Association 
and  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy  are  to  be  congratulated 
upon  the  many  faithful  workers,  whose  contributions  on  percolation 
have  been  published  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  A.Ph.A.  and  first  of 
all  in  the  American  Journal  of  Pharmacy. 
The  oldest  forerunner  of  percolation  was  undoubtedly  the  lixiv- 
iation  (from  lix,  ash)  of  the  ashes  of  plants.    Aristotle,  of  Athens, 
