THE  AMERICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY. 
Mjr,  1878. 
Is   . 
FLUID  EXTRACTS  BY  RE  PERCOLATION. 
By  Edward  R.  Squibb,  of  Brooklyn, 
As  the  time  approaches  for  a  revision  of  the  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia 
those  parts  of  it  which  require  the  most  time  and  labor  should  be  recog- 
nized, that  due  consideration  may  be  given  to  them  ;  and  there  is  cer- 
tainly no  department  of  the  work  where  more  time  and  labor  is  needed 
than  upon  the  Fluid  Extracts  and  Extracts.  Should  the  Committee  of 
Final  Revision  fail  to  find  and  adopt  the  best  plan  of  making  this 
important  class  of  preparations  the  Pharmacopoeia  instead  of  being  the 
model  and  standard  of  the  Nation  will  be  surely  disregarded  and  left 
behind  by  the  practice  and  the  results  of  the  large  manufacturer  and 
the  evil  of  the  present  will  be  confirmed  and  fastened  upon  the  future. 
It  will  not  do  for  the  Committee  to  disregard  any  plan  because  it  is 
laborious,  or  troublesome,  or  expensive,  or  complicated,  or  because  it 
is  not  adapted  to  the  knowledge  and  capacity  of  the  large  majority  of 
physicians  and  pharmacists.  These,  though  very  important,  are  still 
secondary  considerations.  The  thing  to  be  accomplished  in  the  Phar- 
macopoeia is  to  have  practically  perfect  preparations  in  every  respect. 
That  is,  preparations  that  are  really  what  they  profess  to  be.  They 
should  contain  all  the  active  and  useful  parts  of  the  drug  in  their  natural 
conditions  and  associations  ; — should  reject  as  far  as  practicable  the 
inert  and  useless  portions  of  the  drug  ;  and  should  bear  the  established 
relation  to  the  drug,  of  minim  for  grain  ; — or,  weight  for  weight,  if 
this  can  be  accomplished  without  materially  disturbing  the  established 
relation.  To  effect  this  object  a  general  scheme,  plan  or  process  can 
be  adopted,  and  then  every  drug  must  be  studied  carefully  and  labori- 
ously. 
The  original  pprocess  of  Prof.  Procter  accomplished  the  exhaustion 
of  the  drug  insufficiently,  but  that  difficulty  can  be  easily  remedied  by 
carrying  the  percolation  farther.     But  the  concentration  of  the  weaker 
'4 
