THE 
AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY, 
JANUARY,  1864. 
ON  ECONOMY  IN  THE  USE  OF  ALCOHOL  IN  PHARMACY. 
By  William  Peocter,  Jr. 
It  has  often  been  a  cause  of  remark  among  American  apoth-  / 
ecaries  as  to  how  their  British  confreres  get  on  in  preparative 
pharmacy  with  alcohol  at  four  dollars  per  gallon.  The  low  price 
at  which  this  important  solvent  has  been  attainable,  until  a  re- 
cent date,  has  induced  its  free  employment  in  pharmaceutical 
processes,  and  in  the  late  revision  of  our  Pharmacopoeia  its  use 
has  been  even  more  extensively  resorted  to  in  preparing  extracts? 
fluid  extracts  and  resins  than  in  previous  editions. 
The  use  of  alcohol  offers  many  advantages  : — 1st,  in  its  effi- 
ciency as  a  solvent  of  medicinal  principles ;  2d,  its  rejection  of 
inert  starchy  and  gummy  substances  ;  3d,  its  greater  volatility, 
requiring  less  time  and  heat  in  evaporation. 
But  just  as  this  authoritative  codex  has  been  promulgated, 
the  apothecary,  the  agent  who  is  to  carry  out  its  precepts,  is  met 
by  the  stubborn  fact  that  alcohol,  owing  to  the  war  tax  on  whis- 
key, and  the  rise  in  the  price  of  grain,  has  risen  from  50  cents  to 
180  cents  per  gallon,  with  the  prospect  of  a  greater  rise  from  an 
additional  war  tax  !  It  may  be  asked,  under  these  circumstances, 
what  course  is  the  pharmaceutist  to  adopt  ?  Must  he  proceed  as 
though  no  change  in  the  price  of  this  solvent  had  occurred,  and 
add  on  its  cost  to  his  preparations,  or  can  he,  by  a  judicious  use 
of  the  solvent,  accomplish  the  end  with  a  less  quantity  and  more 
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