528  Amenctvu  Fhannaeeutical  Association.     -J  ^'"oct'"i882**^'"' 
and  that  they  agree  to  match  in  color  and  appearance  any  powder  that  may- 
be submitted. 
Mr.  Richardson,  of  St.  Louis,  stated  that  adulterations  were  due  to  the 
demand  for  low  priced  goods  by  the  consumer  and  retailer,  and  to  the  ten- 
dency in  the  wholesale  trade  to  sell  goods  at  a  figure  representing  the  pro- 
fits as  nearly  as  may  be  by  naught. 
Prof.  Maisch  had  no  doul)t  of  the  prevalence  of  adulteration,  but,  looking 
at  the  condition  of  the  drug  market  at  the  present  time,  and  comparing  it 
with  that  of  20  or  30  years  ago,  there  was  undoubtedly  a  vast  improvement, 
and  this  matter  was  perhaps  better,  certainly  not  worse,  than  in  most  civil- 
ized countries.  Formerly  adulterated  goods  were  openly  manufactured  in 
Europe,  and  inferior  drugs  sent  here,  as  being  good  enough  for  America^ 
while  now  the  best  articles  were  very  generally  selected,  and  considered 
none  too  good  for  this  market.  He  also  spoke  of  the  difficulties  connected 
with  proximate  analysis,  and  with  the  assaying  of  many  drugs,  and  that 
the  results,  while  they  might  be  perfectly  satisfactory  to  the  investigator 
who  may  undertake  the  labor  in  good  faith,  yet  would  be  unreliable  or 
insufficient  if  measured  by  the  standard  of  an  expert. 
Boracic  acid,  its  preparation  and  uses,  was  the  subject  of  a  paper  by  Mr. 
Edmund  Dana,  Jr.,  of  Portland,  Me.  The  author  found  its  preservative 
action  mentioned  only  in  the  Proceedings  for  1880,  p.  229,  but  overlooked 
the  notice  in  Proceedings,  1873,  p.  269,  and  in  "Am.  Jour.  Phar.,"  1872,  p. 
353.  The  paj^er  gives  a  condensed  account  of  its  chemical,  i:>hysical  and 
therapeutical  properties,  and  gives  formulas  for  a  concentrated  liquor, 
(boric  acid  grs.  xviii,  water  f^i),  glyeerite  (boric  acid  ^iii,  glycerin  f5i,  to 
be  dissolved  with  the  aid  of  a  water-bath)  and  an  ointment,  the  latter  to  be 
made  by  melting  together  white  wax  Jii  and  vaseline  ^^xii  and  adding  gly- 
cerite  of  boric  acid  ^ii. 
During  the  discussion  on  this  paper  a  specimen  of  V)oroglyceride,  pre- 
pared by  Mr.  Thomas  E.  McElhenie,  was  shown,  and  the  irritating  quali- 
ties occasionally  observed  on  the  use  of  boric  acid  were  referred  to  as  being 
probably  due  to  adhering  sulphuric  or  hydrochloric  acid,  which-contami- 
nation  could  be  avoided  by  recrystallization  from  water. 
Mr.  A.  Conrath  2)i"esented  a  paper  on  the  alcoholic  strength  of  commer- 
cial fluid  extracts,  giving  the  results  of  the  examination  of  a  number  of 
these  preparations. 
A  valuable  paper  by  Prof.  Lloyd,  treating  of  precipitates  in  fluid  extracts, 
was  read.  It  was  a  continuation  of  one  presented  the  previous  year,  in 
which  it  was  shown  that  in  such  complex  solutions  as  percolates  each  stra- 
tum, as  it  passes  from  the  j)ercolator,  represents  a  liquid  holding  in  solution 
certain  substances  soluble  therein  only  through  the  intervention  of  other 
substances  directly  soluble  in  the  simple  menstruum,  and  that  by  the  mix- 
ture of  each  succeeding  stratum  with  those  that  preceded  it  the  character 
of  the  liquid  continually  changes,  even  if  the  simple  menstruum  remains 
the  same,  so  that  substances  may  now  become  insoluble  which  in  the  pre- 
ceding liquid  were  held  in  perfect  solution.  To  establish  the  final  equi- 
librium of  a  complete  solution  requires  a  certain  length  of  time,  but  in  the 
present  paper  the  author  shows  that  in  such  concentrated  solutions  as  fluid 
