Am.  Jour.  Pharm. ) 
February,  1914.  j" 
U.  S.  P.  1900  Menstrua. 
57 
almost  impossible  to  get  a  finished  product  containing  the  full  number 
of  H.  T.  U.  of  the  standard  we  had  previously  adopted,  the  average 
being  as  above  stated,  55  H.  T.  U.  per  c.c,  while  with  drug  of  the 
same  quality  when  the  7th  Revision  menstruum  is  employed  no  diffi- 
culty is  experienced.  Owing  to  this  it  was  decided  to  no  longer 
attempt  to  assay  physiologically  the  8th  Revision  product  and  to 
take  such  statement  referring  to  it  off  the  label,  but,  in  order  to 
supply  the  medical  profession  with  a  full  strength  fluidextract  of  the 
drug,  it  was  decided  to  prepare  such  with  a  menstruum  containing 
a  larger  per  cent,  of  alcohol  which  could  be  assayed  and  so  labelled. 
In  the  second  place  the  loss  in  potency  of  the  8th  Revision  is  about 
10  per  cent,  per  year,  while  with  the  7th  Revision  it  is  less  than 
one-half  as  great,  or  about  4  per  cent.  The  results  coincide  quite 
closely  with  those  following  the  change  made  in  the  menstruum  for 
the  fluidextract  of  squill  except  that  the  loss  in  activity  was  greater 
in  the  latter  drug,  as  pointed  out  by  Houghton  2  three  years  ago.  In 
this  paper  several  methods  of  physiological  assay  showed  very 
clearly  that  a  serious  mistake  had  been  made  in  changing  to  acetic 
acid  as  a  menstruum.  The  writers  feel  certain  that  any  one  who  has 
tried  the  8th  Revision  menstruum  for  fluidextract  digitalis  has  found 
that  it  is  much  less  satisfactory  from  a  pharmaceutical  point  of  view, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  loss  in  potency." 
To  this  we  wish  to  add  data  since  obtained  on  F.  E.  Digitalis  as 
follows : 
The  above  samples  were  prepared  from  one  lot  of  drug,  using  100 
grams  and  extracting  until  exhausted. 
Another  small  sample  of  drug  carefully  extracted  by  both 
methods  and  tested  gave  results  as  follows : 
A  sample  of  drug  extracted  with  several  strengths  of  alcohol  gave 
the  following  results : 
Menstruum. 
50  per  cent,  alcohol . 
80  per  cent,  alcohol 
Per  cent.  Activity. 
IOO 
120 
with  50  per  cent,  alcohol 
with  80  per  cent,  alcohol 
no  per  cent,  of  standard. 
140  per  cent,  of  standard. 
Menstruum. 
Per  cent.  Activity. 
94  per  cent,  alcohol 
75  per  cent,  alcohol., 
62.7  per  cent,  alcohol. 
50    per  cent,  alcohol. 
90 
140 
125 
no 
