AFebrr^9r7m-}  Correspondence.  99 
enough  to  be  trusted  for  general  use,  it  will  probably  direct  some 
such  practice.  It  has  not  done  so  yet,  and  until  it  does  it  is  but 
right,  and  it  is  the  part  of  wisdom  and  safety,  to  conform  to  its 
authority  and  obey  its  commands.  Why  sacrifice  the  advantages 
of  having  an  excellent  Pharmacopoeia  by  trying  to  set  up  individual 
or  popular  authority  against  it.  Change  the  law,  if  you  will — but 
don't  change  the  practice  against  the  law. 
I  have  no  objection  whatever  to  your  using  what  I  have  said  in 
your  approaching  discussion  of  the  subject  on  the  20th.  Indeed,  I 
would  very  much  like  to  have  this  letter  read  in  the  discussion  at 
the  Pharmaceutical  Meeting  on  January  20th,  and  published  in  the 
Minutes  of  the  College  Meeting.  Very  truly  yours, 
E.  R.  Squibb. 
New  York,  January  9,  1897. 
Lyman  F.  Kebler,  Esq. 
My  Dear  Sir  : — You  ask  me  what  my  opinion  is  regarding  the 
propriety  of  making  tinctures  and  other  liquid  preparations  from  the 
corresponding  fluid  extracts,  citing  as  an  example  the  case  of  nux 
vomica,  where  the  U.S.P.  directs  the  tincture  to  be  made  from  the 
assayed  extract,  and  then  raising  the  question  why  a  tincture  of 
aconite  (35  per  cent.)  prepared  from  an  assayed  fluid  extract  should 
be  less  reliable  than  one  made  direct  from  the  drug  of  unknown 
strength. 
In  compliance  with  your  request,  I  submit  the  following,  which 
you  are  at  liberty  to  use,  as  coming  from  me,  in  any  way  agreeable 
to  you : 
When  fluid  extracts  were  first  suggested  and  introduced,  the  prin- 
cipal claim  made  for  them  was  that  they  represented  the  correspond- 
ing tinctures,  wines,  etc.,  in  a  more  concentrated  form  and  in  a 
smaller  bulk.  No  one  claimed  for  them  a  different  therapeutic 
action,  except,  of  course,  that  a  proportionately  smaller  quantity  of 
them  was  required  to  produce  the  same  effect  as  a  corresponding 
dose  of  the  respective  tinctures.  No  authority  in  therapeutics  to 
this  day  has  maintained  that  tinctures  and  fluid  extracts  prepared 
from  the  same  drug  differed  by  more  than  the  degree  of  effect,  ex- 
cept, perhaps,  in  a  few  cases,  and  then  for  reasons  well  understood. 
Now,  if  a  tincture  or  a  fluid  extract  is  properly  made  from  the 
same,  uniformly  mixed  and  comminuted  lot  of  a  drug,  either  of  them 
