324  Mnutes  of  the  Pharmaceutical  Meeting.     { "^""i^ne'igs?""' 
MINUTES  OF  THE  PHARMACEUTICAL  MEETING. 
PHILADEJ.PIIIA,  May  16,  1882. 
The  regular  pharmaceutical  meeting  was  held  in  the  College  hall, 
Alonzo  Bobbins  in  the  chair,  and  William  Mclntyre  acting  Registrar. 
Prof.  Maisch,  on  behalf  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association, 
donated  Vol.  29,  Proceedings  of  their  annual  Meeting,  1881. 
James  T.  Shinn  read  a  paper  prepared  by  A.  H.  Riise,  of  St.  Thomas, 
W.  I.,  on  Bay  Rum,  and  donated  specimens  of  the  leaves  and  fruit  of 
Myrcia  acris,  oil  of  bay  and  distilled  bay  rum  (see  page  278).    In  the  dis- 
cussion on  this  paper  this  subject  was  said  to  be  of  importance  from  the 
little  that  had  been  iDublished.    Bay  rum  is  hardly  known  on  the  conti- 
nent of  Europe,  and  25  years  ago  its  true  origin  was  also  unknown  in  this 
country.    In  a  paper  published  in  the  "American  Journal  of  Pharmacy," 
in  1861  (page  289),  it  was  shown  that  bay  rum  was  produced  from  Myrcia 
acris,  the  material  for  identifying  the  plant  being  a  few  leaves  and  branch- 
lets,  without  flowers  and  fruit.    Subsequently,  the  late  Mr.  Elias  Durand 
ascertained,  through  one  of  his  West  Indian  correspondents,  that  the 
plant  had  been  correctly  determined,  but  nothing  was  then  known  of  the 
use  of  the  fruit  in  this  connection.    That  the  volatile  oil  of  this  plant  con- 
tained eugenol  was  known  for  some  years,  but  this  was  first  published  by 
Prof.  Markoe  in  1877,  who  had  made  many  interesting  experiments  with 
the  volatile  oil  distilled  by  himself  from  the  leaves,  which  proved  its  close 
chemical  relation  to  the  volatile  oils  of  clove  and  pimenta.    The  composi- 
tion accounts  for  the  resemblance  in  odor;  still  there  is  a  marked  differ- 
ence in  this  respect,  fully  as  great  as,  for  instanc,  in  those  volatile  oils 
which  contain  anisol,  and  the  cause  of  this  difference  is  as  yet  not  known. 
Plants  which  are  of  near  botanical  relation  are  often  of  very  similaj  chem- 
ical composition  ;  yet  in  the  volatile  oils  there  is  sometimes  a  wide  differ- 
ence, not  merely  in  odor  but  in  their  constituents.    Attention  was  drawn 
to  the  collection  of  volatile  oils  of  different  species  of  Eucalyptus  which 
some  years  ago  were  presented  to  the  College  cabinet  by  Mr.  Bosisto,  of 
Melbourne,  and  of  which  one,  obtained  from  Eucalyptus  persicifolia,  pos- 
sesses not  only  an  odor  closely  analogous  to,  but  contains  also  the  same 
chemical  compounds  which  are  found  in  the  volatile  oil  of  bitter  almonds. 
It  was  suggested  by  Prof.  Maisch  that  probably  the  volatile  oils  of  several 
of  the  many  West  Indian  myrtles  might  contain  eugenol  and  have  a  more 
or  less  distinct  allspice  odor,  but  that  others  had  most  likely  an  entirely 
different  composition,  and  that  the  many  varieties  of  the  bayberry  tree, 
referred  to  in  the  paper  of  Mr.  Riise,  were  really  different  species  of  the 
genera  Pimenta,  Myrcia  and  other  Myrtacese. 
Mr.  Shinn  showed  four  samples  of  commercial  h'dy  rum,  of  which  the 
one  made  by  Mr.  Riise  had  the  specific  gravity  '9210,  corresponding  to  48^ 
per  cent,  by  weight  of  alcohol,  while  the  density  of  the  others  was  '9290, 
•9325  and  '9380,  equal  to  44^,  43  and  40^  per  cent,  of  alcohol.    A  specimen 
