284 
Progress  in  Pharmacy. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
June,  1914. 
Sarsaparilla.  (Editorial.) — The  proposition  to  include  in  the 
Pharmacopoeia  of  the  United  States,  Mexican,  Honduras,  Para,  and 
Jamaica  varieties  of  sarsaparilla  is  especially  interesting  in  connec- 
tion with  the  revision  of  the  British  Pharmocopceia,  it  being  under- 
stood that  this  good  old-fashioned  drug  does  not  commend  itself 
to  the  Oxford  Street  savants,  who  desire  to  relegate  it  to  the  limbo 
of  ex-official  things. — Chem.  and  Drug.,  1914,  vol.  84,  p.  566. 
Serum  Treatment  of  Tetanus.  (Editorial.) — The  great  value  of 
antitetanus  serum  as  a  preventive  is  unquestioned.  As  a  specific 
cure,  however,  this  serum  has  fallen  far  short  of  the  earliest  expec- 
tations ;  it  even  has  been  asserted  that  so  far  the  statistics  and  the 
evidence  obtained  from  watching  patients  treated  with  serum  do  not 
indicate  that  it  has  any  real  curative  value.  It  has  been  shown  ex- 
perimentally, however,  that  antitetanus  serum  may  save  animals 
already  suffering  from  the  symptoms  of  an  otherwise  fatal  intoxi- 
cation, but  in  order  to  accomplish  this  result  the  serum  must  be  given 
in  several  hundred  times  the  quantity  required  merely  to  protect,  and 
it  must  be  injected  within  a  short  time,  from  24  to  36  hours,  after 
the  onset  of  the  tetanus.  Furthermore,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the 
weight  of  statistics  favors  the  serum. — /.  Am.  M.  Assoc.,  1914,  vol. 
62,  pp.  1 174,  1 175. 
Silver  Methylene  Blue  contains  24  per  cent,  of  silver.  Is  being 
tried  as  an  antiseptic,  as  it  is  assumed  to  possess  a  powerful  bacteri- 
cidal action  in  various  infectious  processes. — Chem.  and  Drug.,  1914, 
vol.  84,  p.  443. 
Tenosin. — The  active  constituents  of  ergot  are  now  contracted 
to  three  substances,  ^-oxyphenolethylamine,  beta-imidazolylethylam- 
ine,  and  ergotoxin.  For  therapeutic  purposes  only  the  first  two 
substances  come  into  consideration,  as  the  ergotoxin  is  the  gengren- 
producing  substance  of  ergot.  Tenosin  is  said  to  be  a  mixture  of  the 
two  amines  mentioned  above,  and  is  available  either  in  the  form  of 
ampoules  or  as  a  liquid  for  internal  administration. — Sildd.  Apoth- 
Ztg.,  1914,  vol.  54,  p.  63. 
Theobromine  Sodium,  Salicylate.  (Puckner  and  Leach.) — Report 
of  an  investigation  of  the  available  brands  of  theobromine  sodium 
salicylate.  The  results  of  the  investigation,  which  are  in  the  form  of 
a  table,  show  some  variation  in  the  moisture  content  and  also  in  the 
actual  theobromine  content  of  the  dried  specimens;  the  variation  is 
unimportant.  .The  products  in  their  original  state  (undried),  as 
compared  in  relation  to  the  theobromine  content  (the  highest  per- 
