ON  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  FLUID   EXTRACTS.  113 
medicine  and  surgery.  Within  a  few  hours'  ride  by  rail  road, 
however,  at  the  towns  of  Carlisle,  Penrith,  Ulverstone,  &c,  I 
found  the  prescription  business  very  much  in  the  hands  of  the 
surgeons  and  general  practitioners,  and  the  pharmaceutists  re- 
duced to  the  level  of  dealers  in  drugs,  domestic  remedies,  and 
household  articles,  including  tea  coffee  and  "  sweets  ;"  as  a  con- 
sequence of  this,  the  practice  of  the  art  is  less  thorough  and 
scientific,  and  the  people  are  the  losers. 
(To  be  continued.) 
ON  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  FLUID  EXTRACTS. 
By  John  M.  Maisch. 
Of  late  there  has  been  some  discussion  in  pharmaceutical  cir- 
cles concerning  the  most  appropriate  agent  for  preserving  those 
valuable  preparations,  the  fluid  extracts.  The  tenor  of  these 
discussions  makes  it  evident  that  the  opinion  has  been  gaining 
ground  in  favor  of  alcohol  as  the  best  menstruum,  and  in  prefer- 
ence to  an  aqueous  solution  of  sugar.  The  reasons  for  this  pre- 
ference are  principally  twofold ;  1,  that  alcohol  is  a  solvent  for 
all  medicinal  principles  produced  by  organic  life ;  and  2,  that  al- 
cohol is  a  more  powerful  antiseptic  than  sugar. 
The  first  allegation  is  a  hypothesis  of  Mr.  W.  S.  Merrill,  which, 
though  no  positive  proof  for  it  has  as  yet  been  attempted,  still 
has  the  appearance  of  being  a  fact  in  a  large  majority  of  cases, 
although  not  a  universal  law.  I  do  not  intend  now  to  speak 
about  this,  but  merely  remark  that,  so  far  as  it  is  true,  its  great- 
est influence  would  be  exercised  on  the  method  of  preparing  the 
extracts,  and  more  particularly  on  the  menstruum  employed  du- 
ring that  process,  so  that  water  would  be  more  or  less  entirely 
dispensed  with.  The  mere  fact  of  the  medicinal  virtues  of  a 
plant  being  extracted  by  alcohol,  does  by  no  means  exclude  the 
possibility  of  preserving  these  principles  in  an  aqueous  liquid  by 
means  of  sugar,  so  long  as  it  has  not  been  demonstrated  that  water 
or  solution  of  sugar,  is  no  solvent  for  them,  or  rather  after  it  has 
'been  proven  that  they  are  soluble  in  such  a  liquid  ;  if  insoluble,  of 
course,  that  menstruum  is  inadmissible. 
The  second  reason  has  been  advanced  and  argued  by  Mr. 
S 
