38 
Maceration  and  Percolation. 
(Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
(    January,  1910. 
In  1838  the  Philadelphia  pharmacist,  Augustine  Duhamel,  pub- 
lished in  the  AJ.Ph.,  vol.  x,  pp.  1-17,  an  essay,  "  Boullay's  Filter 
and  System  of  Displacement  with  Observations  drawn  from  Ex- 
perience." Duhamel  deserves  special  credit,  as  he  was  the  first 
to  present  this  subject  to  the  American  pharmaceutical  profession. 
In  1839  A.  Duhamel  and  Wm.  Procter,  Jr.,  published  in  the 
AJ.Ph.,  vol.  xi,  pp.  189-201 :  "  Observations  on  the  Method  of 
Displacement,"  in  which  paper  they  state  that  in  France  this  method 
is  extensively  applied  and  was  made  official  in  the  Codex  1835,  but 
in  the  U.  S.  it  is  hardly  known,  much  less  applied,  and  they  make 
a  plea  for  its  introduction  into  the  next  U.S. P.  And  it  was  intro- 
duced into  the  U.S. P.  1840,  which  authority  states  in  the  preface: 
"  As  to  the  kind  of  filtration  commonly  called  displacement,  it  is 
strongly  recommended  to  those  who  have  not  made  themselves  prac- 
tically familiar  with  the  various  sources  of  error  in  the  matter  of 
displacement  to  postpone  its  application  whenever  an  alternative  is 
given  in  this  work,  until  they  shall  have  acquired  the  requisite  skill." 
In  1840  this  process  was  also  sanctioned  by  the  Edinburgh 
Pharmacopoeia,  which  states :  "  A  much  superior  method  has  been 
introduced  which  answers  well  for  most  tinctures — namely  the 
method  of  displacement  by  percolation."  This  is  the  first  men- 
tioning of  percolation,  which  word  is  used  instead  of  displacement. 
Quite  a  dispute  arose  which  pharmacopoeia  adopted  percolation  first. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  made  official  in  both  pharmacopoeias 
in  their  edition  of  1840,  but  the  U.S.P.  1840  did  not  appear  until 
1843  and  the  Edinburgh  Pharmacopoeia  1840  was  published  in  1839. 
As  we  have  seen  before  Real  moistened  the  ground  drug  with 
half  its  weight  of  menstruum,  Boullay  used  the  dry  powder,  and  the 
Edinburgh  Pharmacopoeia  moistened  it  sufficiently  with  menstruum 
to  form  a  thick  pulp. 
The  British  Pharmacopoeia  of  1864  in  which  percolation  was 
introduced  gives  the  following,  according  to  Ince  very  unsatisfactory, 
general  directions :  "  Macerate  for  forty-eight  hours  in  three-quar- 
ters of  the  spirit  in  a  closed  vessel,  agitating  occasionally ;  then  trans- 
fer to  percolator  and  when  fluid  ceases  to  pass,  continue  the  perco- 
lation with  the  remainder  of  the  spirit."  Such  an  authority  as  Ince 
criticizes  this  method  as  unnecessary,  wasteful,  and  messy.  As  this 
combination  method  is  even  used  to-day  by  some  druggists,  I  hope 
they  will  consider  these  criticisms  and  discard  this  process  in  favor 
of  the  up-to-date  percolation  method. 
