ON  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  FLUID  EXTRACTS,  117 
of  which  water  is  one  of  the  paramount  conditions.  An  arrest 
of  one  way  of  decay,  does,  however,  not  indicate  the  aptitude  of 
alcohol  to  do  the  same  in  every  direction,  and  proofs  can  be  fur- 
nished that  notwithstanding  the  presence  of  alcohol  changes  of 
organic  matter  do  take  place.  Let  every  pharmaceutist  examine 
his  tinctures,  any  and  all  of  them,  and  he  will  find,  no  matter 
how  nice  and  clear  they  may  have  been  directly  after  they  had 
been  finished,  that  after  more  or  less  time  in  ordinary  contact 
with  the  air,  such  as  is  afforded  in  the  common  course  of  our 
business,  that  they  have  formed  precipitates,  from  the  minute 
and  pulverulent  settlings  of  tincture  of  cardamom,  cantharides, 
gentian  &c,  to  the  more  bulky  and  curdy  sediment  of  tincture 
of  krameria,  the  resinlike  precipitate  of  tincture  of  bark,  aloes, 
&c.  or  the  gelatinous  mass  of  tincture  of  kino.  But  it  may  be 
argued  that  if  the  alcohol  had  been  substituted  by  water,  the  de- 
composition would  have  gone  much  further.  This  assertion  is 
true,  but  with  this  difference,  that  the  decomposition  would  have 
been  in  another  direction,  moulding,  putrefaction  would  have 
taken  place,  water  would  have  extracted  quite  different  bodies, 
glutinous  and  albuminous  substances  which  easily  decay  and  ne- 
cessarily leid  all  organic  matter  with  which  they  are  in  contact 
to  the  road  of  destruction. 
I  have  no  intention  of  attempting  to  prove  a  superiority  of 
water  over  alcohol  as  a  menstruum,  for  in  the  presence  of  the 
former  alone  every  conceivable  way  of  decay  may  take  place, 
while  by  alcohol  two  or  three  are  excluded,  and  this  is  the  real 
advantage  in  using  it  as  a  pharmaceutical  menstruum.  The  is- 
sue, however,  is  not  between  water  and  alcohol,  but  between  syr- 
up and  alcohol  ;  and  here  let  us  look  at  some  every  day  occur- 
rences in  the  pharmaceutical  store.  Syrup  of  rhubarb  is  made 
with  an  alcoholic  menstruum  of  half  the  strength  of  that  em- 
ployed for  the  tincture,  and  must  necessarily  contain  a  larger 
amount  of  gummy  matter ;  the  latter  being  about  one  fifth  stronger, 
if  well  made,  will  soon  throw  down  a  sediment,  while  the  syrup, 
if  made  in  accordance  with  the  Pharmacopoeia,  may  be  kept 
almost  indefinitely  without  precipitating,  its  chief  enemy  being 
a  very  low  temperature,  when  the  sugar  will  crystallize.  Wine 
of  ipecacuanha  likewise  separates  a  sediment  which  does  not  oc- 
cur in  syrup  of  ipecac,  which  is  only  of  half  the  strength  of  the 
