ADecJmb4r!wo7?*}      Some  Official  Standards  and  Tests.  553 
A  further  striking  inaccuracy  occurs  on  page  353  of  Kebler's 
paper.  He  there  represents  the  formation  of  camphor  from  "  tur- 
pentine "  by  means  of  oxalic  acid,  but  in  this  case  pinene  and  cam. 
phor  are  represented  by  formulae  which  are  not  only  totally 
different  from  those  assigned  to  these  substances  in  the  preceding 
portion  of  his  paper,  but  are,  moreover,  quite  incorrect. 
It  may  incidentally  be  noted  that  the  same  error  regarding  the 
structure  of  pinene  as  that  first  referred  to  above  occurred  in  a  paper 
entitled  "Syntheses  of  Camphor,"  recently  communicated  to  the 
New  York  section  of  the  Society  of  Chemical  Industry.  (J.  S.  C.  I., 
1907,  Vol.  XXVI,  8,  384.) 
The  Wellcome  Chemical  Research  Laboratories, 
London,  E.  C 
COMMENTS  ON  SOME  OFFICIAL  STANDARDS  AND 
TESTS.1 
By  L.  Henry  Bernegau. 
In  commenting  upon  some  official  standards  and  tests  it  has  been 
thought  best  to  bring  before  the  meeting  this  evening  a  few  selected 
observations  somewhat  out  of  the  usual  run,  rather  than  to  con- 
sider the  more  familiar  tests,  such,  for  instance,  as  are  included 
in  the  "  purity  rubric  "  requirements,  which  must  now  be  well  known 
to  all  of  us  whose  daily  duties  demand  a  constant  use  of  the  United 
States  Pharmacopoeia.  I  shall,  therefore,  confine  my  comments  to 
less  than  half  a  dozen  topics,  hoping  that  the  experiences  of  others 
present  may  be  brought  out  in  the  discussion,  for  it  is  only  by 
working  together  and  exchanging  our  views  that  real  good  may 
come  from  these  meetings,  and  the  scientific  status  of  the  professsion 
of  pharmacy  be  raised. 
Gum  Benzoin. — The  U.S.P.  requires  that  benzoin  be  soluble  in 
5  parts  of  warm  alcohol,  show  an  acid  reaction  to  litmus  paper,  be 
soluble  in  KOH  and  NaOH  solutions,  on  incineration  leave  not 
more  than  2  per  cent,  ash  and  yield  benzoic  acid  on  sublimation. 
There  are  four  kinds  of  benzoin  on  the  market — Siam,  Sumatra, 
Penang  and  Palemga  varieties.    The  first  two  are  the  ones  with 
1  Read  before  the  Philadelphia  Branch  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical 
Association,  November,  1907. 
