Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
July,  19 17. 
Tinctura  Cinchona  Composita. 
309 
Magnesium  sulphate,  dried 
Sodium  hydroxide,  U.  S.  P. 
Distilled  water  to  make  . . . 
1. 000.0 
270.0 
120.0 
Dissolve  the  magnesium  sulphate  in  enough  water  to  make  750 
mils  and  filter;  dissolve  the  sodium  hydroxide  in  enough  of  water 
to  make  250  mils ;  filter.  Pour  the  sodium  hydroxide  solution  into 
the  magnesium  sulphate  solution ;  mix  well,  and  bring  up  to  4,000 
mils  with  distilled  water.  Wash  by  decantation,  bringing  up  the 
volume  each  time  to  4,000  mils.  Continue  washing  until  the  super- 
natant liquor,  when  tested  with  barium  chloride  test  solution,  does 
not  show  more  than  traces  of  sulphate.  When  assayed  by  the  official 
method,  the  magma  contains  not  less  than  6.5  per  cent,  nor  more 
than  7.5  per  cent,  of  magnesium  hydroxide. 
Imprimis:  The  most  soluble  form  of  the  alkaloids  of  cinchona  is 
the  hydrochloride.  It  has  always  seemed  to  me  in  the  course  of 
fifty-odd  years  in  the  drug  trade  a  very  curious  thing  that  the  uni- 
versally used  salt  of  quinia  at  least  in  English-speaking  countries 
should  be  the  sulphate  and  that  this  should  come  in  the  course  of 
successive  generations  to  be  so  commonly  the  name  that  when 
quinine  was  mentioned  "  quinine  sulphate "  was  understood  to  be 
the  variety  intended  and  neither  the  alkaloid  nor  any  other  salt  was 
thought  of  for  many  years. 
Probably  the  real  reason  was  for  the  discoverers  that  thev  could 
make  it  that  way  cheaper,  as  the  calcium  sulphate  was  so  easily  got 
rid  of. 
Pondering  thus,  I  have  had  in  mind  for  a  long  time  to  try  the 
merit  of  hydrochloric  acid  in  the  maceration  of  the  ground  mixed 
drugs  for  a  lot  of  the  compound  tincture  and  on  November  26,  1916, 
as  a  preliminary  trial  of  the  solvent  effect  of  the  weak  acid  one  per 
cent,  by  volume  on  the  reddish  brown  sediment  always  present  in 
the  finished  tincture,  after  standing  a  month  or  so. 
I  had  about  2,000  mils  of  the  regular  official  tincture  from  a  lot 
1  Read  at  the  meeeting  of  the  New  Jersey  Pharmaceutical  Association, 
June  13,  1917. 
TIXCTURA  CINCHONA  COMPOSITA.1 
By  Thomas  D.  McElhexie,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 
