THE  AMERICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY 
JANUARY,  i goo. 
ON   ACETIC   ACID   AS   A   SUBSTITUTE    FOR  ETHYL 
ALCOHOL  UN  EXTRACTING  THE  ACTIVE  PRIN- 
CIPLES OF  SOME  OFFICINAL  DRUGS. 
By  Edward  R.  Souibb,  M.D., 
Of  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 
(Third  Paper,  Belladonna  Root.) 
In  continuing  this  subject  for  a  third  paper — see  American  Jour- 
nal of  Pharmacy  for  January,  1899,  Vol.  71,  No.  1,  and  Vol.  71, 
No.  7,  for  July,  1899,  and  Ephemeris,  Vol.  V,  No.  3,  for  July,  1899, 
for  the  two  preceding  papers — the  writer  refers  to  without  repeating 
the  introductory  matter  of  the  first  paper  where  the  therapeutic  and 
pharmaceutic  bearings  of  the  subject  are  discussed,  and  passes  on 
to  the  farther  work  which  is  to  be  depended  upon  to  support  or 
oppose  the  proposed  substitution,  or  ascertain  the  limits  of  its 
applicability. 
The  experimental  trials  and  the  actual  use — chiefly  in  veterinary 
practice — of  extracts  and  fluid  extracts  made  with  acetic  acid  have 
continued  since  the  date  of  the  last  paper,  until  now  the  list  em- 
braces some  sixty  drugs  and  spices.  This  increasing  experience 
tends  to  support  two  generalizations. 
First,  that  a  menstruum  of  10  per  cent,  acetic  acid  is  about  the 
weakest  that  will  surely  extract,  protect  and  preserve  the  active 
principles  of  many  drugs,  and  that  such  a  menstruum  leaves  not  less 
than  6  nor  more  than  8  per  cent,  of  free  acid  in  the  finished  fluid 
extract,  and  is  about  equivalent  as  a  menstruum  to  the  officinal  alco- 
hol dilutum,  or  41  per  cent,  alcohol. 
Second,  that  from  one-fourth  to  one-third  of  the  fluid  extracts 
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