PURITY  OF  SULPHATE  OF  QUININE  OF  COMMERCE.  41 
REPORT  ON  THE  PURITY  OF  SULPHATE  OF  QUININE  OF 
COMMERCE. 
BY  MR.  W.  WALTER  STODDART. 
(Read  at  the  Bath  Meeting  of  the  British  Pharmaceutical  Conference. 
September,  1864.) 
Probably  quinine  is  one  of  the  most  important  therapeutic 
remedies  for  the  ills  of  the  human  body  that  has  ever  been  in- 
troduced to  the  notice  of  the  medical  man ;  so  extensively  is 
it  used,  and  with  such  certainty  may  its  effects  be  calculated, 
that  no  other  substance  can  be  advantageously  substituted.  Yet 
this  very  circumstance  unfortunately  gives  the  temptation  for 
frauds  and  adulterations  so  commonly  said  to  bo  practised  by 
unprincipled  dealers. 
The  smallness  of  the  dose  with  which  quinine  gives  such  re- 
markable results,  renders  any  sophistication  all  the  more  danger- 
ous, and  disappointing  to  the  physician  ;  indeed,  the  very  turn- 
ing-point of  an  illness  may  be  frequently  dependent  on  the 
purity  of  a  sample  of  quinine. 
It  is  not  by  any  means  to  be  supposed  that  any  suspicion  is 
attached  to  the  high  respectability  and  probity  of  the  well- 
known  manufacturers  of  quinine.  Existing  adulterations,  prop- 
erly so  called,  such  as  the  deliberate  addition  of  salicine,  sugar, 
boracic  acid,  quinidine,  cinchonine,  etc.,  are  only  made  by 
second  or  third-rate  dealers,  or  when  it  has  passed  through  the 
hands  of  a  third  or  fourth  party.  Such  samples  may  still  be 
found  in  shops  situated  in  secluded  parts  of  the  country  or 
lowest  streets  of  a  city,  and  traceable  to  the  same  origin. 
On  the  other  hand,  probably  from  difference  in  the  mode  of 
preparation  or  separation  of  the  cinchona  alkaloids,  quinine 
differs  much  from  the  presence  of  its  isomeride  quinidine.  The 
latter  is  often,  if  not  always  associated  with  quinine  in  the  nat- 
ural state,  and  has  many  of  its  reactions  exactly  similar,  be- 
sides being  nearly  as  soluble  in  the  usual  menstrua. 
It  therefore  becomes  to  a  certain  extent  a  natural  mixture, 
and  in  proportion  to  the  completeness  of  the  extracting  process, 
so  will  be  the  purity  of  the  product.  Opinions,  it  is  true,  vary 
greatly  as  to  whether  quinine  and  quinidine  differ  in  their  med- 
icinal power,  and  therefore  some  may  say  that  the  presence  of 
