Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
June,  1900. 
An  Examination  of  Acacia. 
267 
"  It  was  not  the  quiet  swinging  of  the  pearl  gates  as  they  opened 
to  admit  one  more  among  the  countless  throng,  but  a  sudden  flash, 
and  wide  open  sprang  those  doors  as  his  spirit  passed  through." 
Yet,  my  colleagues,  there  was  mercy  in  the  hand  which  laid  him 
low ;  no  sharp  death  agony,  no  long  and  painful  struggle,  and  no 
wasting  fever  racked  his  frame  ;  a  mere  transition !  a  simple  laying 
down  of  life  and  taking  up  a  new. 
How  appropriate  are  the  words  of  the  famous  Carlyle :  "  The 
man  whom  we  love  lies  there,  but  gloriously  worthy ;  and  his  spirit 
yet  lives  in  us  with  authentic  life.  Could  each  here  vow  to  do  his 
little  task  as  the  departed  did  his  great  one — in  the  manner  of  a 
true  man — not  for  a  day,  but  lor  eternity;  to  live  as  he  counseled, 
not  commodiously  in  the  Reputable,  the  Plausible,  the  Half ;  but 
resolutely  in  the  Whole,  the  Good,  and  the  True." 
AN  EXAMINATION  OF  ACACIA. 
By  Robert  G.  Shoui/ts. 
In  endeavoring  to  devise  some  means  whereby  the  presence  of 
dextrin  might  be  established  when  admixed  with  powdered  acacia, 
the  writer  found  that  the  behavior  of  gum  arabic  towards  the  usual 
reagents  so  nearly  corresponded  to  the  reactions  of  commercial 
dextrin  that  it  seems  next  to  impossible  to  distinguish  them  by 
qualitative  tests  alone.  The  United  States  Pharmacopoeia  ('90) 
asserts  that  acacia  will  not  reduce  alkaline  cupric  tartrate  V.  S. 
(Fehling's  solution),  but  this  is  manifestly  incorrect,  as  a  study  of 
the  appended  table  will  show. 
The  Pharmacopoeia  does  not  state  how  Fehling's  solution  is  to 
be  used,  or,  in  other  words,  to  what  temperature  the  mixed  solu- 
tions must  be  heated  in  this  test. 
It  would  seem  that  this  point  were  of  some  importance,  as  the 
temperature  obtained  by  the  use  of  a  water-bath  is  not  ordinarily 
sufficient  to  produce  the  characteristic  red  precipitate  which  the 
writer  has  observed  at  somewhat  higher  temperatures. 
A  sample  of  the  commercial  powdered  gum  and  also  a  sample 
powdered  very  finely  by  hand  produced  a  slight  reduction  at  water- 
bath  temperature,  but  the  supernatant  solutions,  after  being  filtered 
and  boiled,  yielded  much  heavier  precipitates  than  in  the  first 
instance. 
Schroeder  noticed  this  peculiar  action  of  the  powdered  gum,  and 
he  attributed  it  to  drying  preparatory  to  powdering.  A.  J.  P.,  97,  195 
