PURIFICATIONS OF GUM RESINS. 297 
We have witnessed several times cases in which the tribu- 
nals acquitted the defaulters, regretting that the law made 
no provisions empowering them to inflict penalties. 
Ibid. 
ART. LXI. — PURIFICATION OF GUM RESINS BY MEANS 
OF DISTILLED WATER AND ESSENTIAL OIL OF TUR- 
PENTINE. 
By M. Lamothe. 
Various media have been successively employed for the 
purification of the gum-resins. Baume recommends dis- 
solving them in vinegar ; the old French Codex substitutes 
white wine for vinegar ; that of 1818, weak alcohol for the 
white wine ; and in the preparation of Empl. Conii, it 
orders vinegar of squills and hemlock juice for dissolving 
the gum-ammoniac. The late M. Henri, in his lectures at 
the Pharmacie Centrale, likewise suggested weak alcohol 
as the best solvent ; a method which has generally been 
adopted, and which is prescribed in the new Codex. 
I confess that alcohol affords an homogeneous product 
well adapted for being incorporated in plasters ; but if the 
length of time required for the operation be taken into con- 
sideration, the expense of the alcohol, which, notwithstand- 
ing the care of the operator, is for the greater part dissi- 
pated, and the quantity of the liquid requisite for dissolving 
completely the gum-resins, the preference will be given to 
the process which I have employed for sixteen years in my 
laboratory ; a process which is less expensive, more expe- 
ditious, and affords equally good products: — 
JS& Gum-ammoniac, or any other gum-resin, 1 part. 
Distilled water, 4 parts. 
