Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  \ 
Feb.,  1877.  J 
Adulterations, 
57 
ADULTERATIONS. 
By  Adolph  W.  Miller,  M.D.  Ph.D. 
(Read  at  the  Pharmaceutical  Meeting  January  i6thf  1877.) 
Some  extraordinary  accounts  of  falsification  of  drugs  and  chemicals 
having  recently  come  to  the  notice  of  the  writer,  it  is  deemed  advisable 
to  place  an  account  of  them  on  record.  While  they  embrace  perhaps 
nothing  that  is  absolutely  new,  the  subject  is  presented  in  a  new  phase 
in  so  far  as  it  relates  to  most  villainous  frauds  practised  on  suffering 
humanity  by  apparently  respectable  druggists,  whose  only  plausible 
excuse  for  these  rascalities  seems  to  be  excessive  and  ruinous  competi- 
tion in  business.  It  may  be  prefaced  that  these  statements  are  not 
mere  hearsay  testimony,  but  that  most  of  them  are  derived  from  parties 
having  an  actual  knowledge  of  the  transactions  referred  to. 
Oregon  balsam  of  fir  (so-called)  appeared  in  the  New  York  market 
several  years  ago.  Prof.  Maisch  then  examined  it,  pronounced  it  to 
be  of  suspicious  appearance,  and  raised  the  query  :  "  Is  such  an  article 
known  on  our  Pacific  coast,  and  if  so,  what  is  its  source,  and  how  is 
it  obtained?"  ("Am.  Jour.  Pharm. ,"  1874,  p.  106.)  This  inquiry 
can  now  be  answered  by  stating  that  the  article  in  question  emanated 
from  St.  Louis,  Mo.,  where  it  was  manufactured  by  carefully  melting 
two  parts  of  the  finest  select  white  rosin  with  one  part  oil  of  turpen- 
tine. A  small  amount,  generally  about  one  ounce  to  five  gallons,  of 
oil  of  wormwood  was  subsequently  added,  this  having  been  found  to 
be  most  efficacious  in  completely  disguising  the  ordinary  terebinthinate 
odor.  The  "balsam"  was  then  shipped  to  a  prominent  New  York 
broker,  who  succeeded  in  selling  considerable  quantities  of  it,  as  the 
genuine  article  happened  to  be  at  that  time  unusually  scarce  and  high- 
priced. 
Sulphate  of  quinia,  put  up  in  the  usual  style  of  the  American  manu- 
facturers, has  heretofore  been  regarded  as  being  above  reproach.  Even 
our  lately  much  abused  dealers  in  pure  essential  oils  of  New  York, 
contented  themselves  with  operations  in  Pelletier's  French  quinia. 
My  information  is  to  the  effect  that  a  year  or  two  ago  in  one  of  our 
Western  cities  the  labels  of  American  manufacturers  were  deliberately 
soaked  off,  after  which  an  admixture  of  salicin  was  introduced.  The 
label  was  then  replaced  and  the  article  disposed  of.  Another  some- 
what more  enterprising  dealer  in  the  same  city  had  muriate  of  cinchonia 
manufactured  on  his  own  premises  and  used  this  to  adulterate  sulphate 
