324 
PREPARATION OF BESTUCHEFF's TINCTURE. 
vantages which may at any time result, — independent, also, of 
the fact that it tends to make one to a certain extent familiar 
with the authors and polite literature of a great people, a circum- 
stance which of itself should be sufficient to induce any one to 
devote, for a time, his leisure hours to its acquisition, — there is to 
the pharmaceutist the perhaps still more important consideration, 
that it opens to him a new field of established and current scien- 
tific literature, the variety and extent of which but little idea can 
be formed by the uninitiated. Time so spent will not be re- 
gretted. J. s. K. 
NOTE ON THE PREPARATION OF BESTUCHEFF'S TINCTURE. 
By Fr. Mayer, 
Pure sesqui-chloride and proto-chloride of iron are unknown to 
the Pharmacopoeia of the United States, a fact which seems strange 
to a German pharmaceutist, since they are met with in every Ger- 
man dispensatory, and require great care for their proper pre- 
paration. 
The American Pharmacopoeia indeed recognizes a tincture of 
of chloride iron, prepared by dissolving the sub-carbonate (sesqui- 
oxide) of iron in hydrochloric acid, and adding alcohol. This 
tincture would be rejected throughout Germany, since they endeavor 
there to obtain the preparations of proto-chloride of iron free from 
any traces of sesqui-chloride, while those of the sesqui-chloride 
should contain no admixture of the proto-salt. This shows the 
practical character of the American Pharmacopoeia, which does 
not demand of the apothecary a purity of preparation w 7 hich it is 
next to impossible to meet. 
While making this acknowledgment, a good formula for the 
preparation of sesqui-chloride of iron still remains desirable. This 
drug, too, is sometimes used in American practice, as may be seen 
from the " Notes on Pharmacy," by Mr. Benjamin Canavan, in 
the May numbei of the New York Journal of Pharmacy. Mr. 
Canavan has given one of the oldest formulae from the Austrian 
Pharmacopoeia of 1820, as found in the Pharmacopie Universelle 
by Jourdam This formula directs us to dissolve the iron in a kind 
