sS'timbe^w™'}    Recent  Literature  Relating  to  Pharmacy.  447 
RECENT  LITERATURE  RELATING  TO  PHARMACY. 
EXTRACT  OF  ERGOT.1 
It  is  not  in  accordance  with  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge  of 
the  active  principles  of  ergot,  says  Meulenhoff,  that  Ergotine  Bon. 
jean  maintains  such  a  prominent  position.  It  contains  a  very  unsat- 
isfactory proportion  of  those  principles.  This  was,  of  course,  not 
known  when  Bonjean  published  his  researches  on  ergot,  in  1841, 
and  recommended  his  preparation  to  the  medical  profession.  The 
German  Pharmacopoeia  seems  to  have  acknowledged  this  fact  and 
introduced,  side  by  side,  with  Bonjean's  preparation,  a  formula  for  an 
extract  of  its  own.  The  Swiss  Pharmacopoeia  has  rejected  Bonjean 
altogether. 
Neither  preparation  deserves  to  be  recommended.  Ergot  cannot  be 
thoroughly  exhausted  of  its  alkaloid  by  the  use  of  acidulated  water, 
nor  by  percolation  with  alcohol  of  20  per  cent.,  nor  by  alcohol  of  20 
per  cent,  to  which  acetic  acid  is  added,  nor  by  alcohol  of  42  per 
cent.  Alcohol  of  70  per  cent,  exhausts  it  thoroughly.  There  is  no 
necessity  to  deprive  ergot  of  its  fat,  of  which  it  contains  on  an  aver- 
age  35  Per  cent.  This  does  not  affect  its  therapeutic  value. 
This  is  in  contradiction  to  a  statement  by  Grover,  in  our  editor's 
article  on  "Cheap  Drugs,"  line  3  from  below  on  page  319,  July 
number  of  this  Journal.  Meulenhoff  proves  his  standpoint  by  a 
.  great  amount  of  figures,  for  which  the  interested  reader  is  referred 
to  the  original  paper.  H2S04  is  preferable  over  any  other  acid  in 
connection  with  ergot,  because  ergotine  sulfate  has  the  greatest 
solubility  of  all  the  other  alkaloidal  salts.  It  is  not  quite  clear 
why  the  Ph.G.  adds  HC1  to  its  percolate.  It  cannot  be  to  separate 
sclererythrine,  because  the  percolate  is  not  filtered  after  the  addi- 
tion of  the  acid,  nor  to  keep  alkaloids  in  solution  which  are  not 
there. 
An  assay  method  is  based  upon  making  an  acidulated  aqueous  ex- 
haustion alkaline  with  ammonia  and  shaking  out  with  ethylic  ether. 
Keller's  MgO  has  no  advantage  over  NH3.  The  residue  of  the 
ethereal  exhaustion  is  afterwards  redissolved  in  acidulated  water, 
whereby  some  decomposition  products  remain  behind  ;  these  are 
separated,  the  fluid  is  made  alkaline  again  and  shaken  out  with  ethylic 
1  The  original  pamphlet,  by  Dr.  J.  D.  Meulenhoff,  consists  of  38  closely 
printed  pages,  and  is  reprinted  from  the  Pharm.  Weekblad,  for  March,  1902. 
