192  Minutes  of  the  Pharmaceutical  Ileeting.    {  -^'"vI>ril?l^^?!'"■ 
MINUTES  OF  THE  PHAEMACEUTICAL  MEETING. 
Philadelphia,  March  21,  1882. 
Tn  the  absence  of  the  President  Mr.  Wm.  J.  Jenks  was  called  to  the 
chair.    The  minutes  of  the  last  pharmaceutical  meeting  were  read  and 
approved. 
Prof.  Power  read  a  paper  upon  honiatropine  (see  page  145).  In  answer 
to  a  question  as  to  what  extent  honiatropine  was  at  present  used  in  medi- 
cine, Dr.  Woltf  stated  that  it  had  not  by  any  means  supplanted  the  older 
remedy,  atropine. 
Prof.  Maisch,  on  behalf  of  the  British  Pharmaceutical  Conference,  pre- 
sented a  copy  of  the  Year  Book  of  Pharmacy  for  1881,  and,  from  the  Phar- 
maceutical Society  of  Great  Britain,  a  copy  of  the  Calendar  of  their  Soci- 
ety  for  the  year  1882. 
Prof.  Maisch  exhibited  specimens  of  a  now  quite  rare  drug,  namely,  the 
American  Castor,  with  oil  sacks  attached  thereto ;  these  were  much  fresher- 
than  the  drug  as  usually  seen  in  the  market,  and  had  a  strong  castor  and 
smoky  odor,  tlie  sacks  having  been  partially  dried  in  the  smoke.  They  had 
been  sent  by  Mr.  C.  R.  Lange,  of  Scribner,  Neb.,  a  graduate  of  the 
College. 
A  query  was  put  as  to  whether  any  present  were  familiar  with  chlori- 
nated oil.  In  reply  Dr.  WoltF  stated  that  he  had  prepared  it  by  pass- 
ing dry  chlorine  gas  into  olive  oil,  and  that,  to  his  surprise,  the  gas  was 
absorbed  to  a  large  amount;  that  there  was  a  very  considerable  rise  in 
the  temperature  of  the  oil,  but  there  was  no  acid  reaction  nor  smell  of 
chlorine  upon  the  oil.  This  chlorinated  oil  has  been  used  quite  success- 
fully in  cutaneous  affections.  Prof;  Maisch  suggested  that  an  acid  reac- 
tion would  probably  be  observed  on  washing  the  oil  w^ith  water ;  at  least 
Lefort  had,  in  1852,  obtained  chlorine  substitution  compounds  by  treating 
fats  with  moist  chlorine.  Prof.  Sadtler  stated  that  he  had  i^repared  such 
substitution  compounds  of  the  fatty  acids,  and  that  soaps  could  be  made 
with  such  acids. 
Mr.  Trimble  called  the  attention  of  the  meeting  to  an  adulteration 
which  was  new  to  him,  viz.,  that  of  extract  of  liquorice  with  extract  of 
logwood;  he  had  endeavored  to  get  a  sample  of  the  sophisticated  arti- 
cle, but  so  far  had  been  unable  to  do  so.  Mr.  Brown  stated  that  he  had 
lately  seen  an  article  of  powdered  extract  of  liquorice,  which,  upon . 
attempting  to  dissolve  for  the  puri:>ose  of  making  brown  mixture,  proved 
to  be  refractory,  and  examination  showed  it  to  be  largely  contaminated 
with  wheat  starch ;  the  article  was  represented  to  be  of  German  origin. 
Prof.  Maisch  considered  this  latter  statement  doubtful,  since  in  that 
country  starch  was  largely  prepared  from  potatoes,  and  this  was  doubt- 
less cheaper  there  than  wheat  starch. 
Prof.  Sadtler  presented  a  copy  of  a  table  of  the  scales  of  Baume^s  hydro- 
meter,  the  results  of  some  very  careful  examinations  into  the  original  papers 
upon  the  subjects,  made  by  Prof.  C.  F.  Chandler  and  one  of  his  assistants ; 
and  also  a  table  of  the  valuations  of  sulphuric  acid  of  different  degrees  of 
the  hydrometer  scale. 
There  being  no  further  business,  a  motion  to  adjourn  was  made  and 
carried,  T.  S.  Wiegand,  Registrar. 
