640  The  Manufacture  of  Aspirin  Tablets.    { AmseJp°tur,IJIh8arm- 
alcohol  within  the  government  requirement — also  Mr.  Peter  Valear, 
assistant  to  the  Chief  Chemist  of  the  Internal  Revenue  was  detailed 
by  Doctor  Adams,  the  present  chief,  to  witness  this  method  of  dis- 
closing the  amount  of  methyl  alcohol  in  mixed  alcohols. 
The  major  portion  of  a  day  was  devoted  to  trials  of  the  ap- 
paratus. The  conclusions  were  that  the  principle  and  operation 
were  worthy  of  consideration.  The  glass  apparatus  was  thought 
too  fragile.  It  is  interesting  to  note  in  this  series  of  tests,  the  ap- 
paratus functioned  with  such  precision  that  it  detected  the  difference 
between  commercial  and  C.  P.  wood  alcohol  in  one  of  the  mixtures 
prepared  by  Mr.  Valear. 
Congress  is  so  occupied  with  war  legislation  that  less  important 
considerations  are  deferred.  However,  we  hope  to  have  the  priv- 
ilege of  producing  low  cost  denatured  alcohol  in  which  denaturing 
substances  will  be  sufficiently  prominent  and  deterring  and  permit- 
ting smaller  additions  of  costly  wood  alcohol. 
THE  MANUFACTURE  OF  ASPIRIN  TABLETS.1 
By  Robert  C.  White,  Phar.D. 
In  The  Pennsylvania  Pharmacist  Volume  1,  number  2,  under  date 
of  April,  1918,  I  was  quite  interested  in  the  suggestion  number  20 
reading,  "  What  has  been  your  experience  with  the  various  aspirins, 
and  aspirin  tablets,  which  have  been  offered  by  the  various  Amer- 
ican manufacturers." 
Being  a  manufacturer,  and  consequently  thinking  along  those 
lines,  and  having  done  considerable  work  from  a  manufacturing 
standpoint  with  regards  to  aspirin,  the  thought  came  to  me  that  per- 
haps a  paper  dealing  entirely  with  the  manufacturing  side  of  aspirin 
tablets  would  be  of  as  much  interest  as  are  the  various  complications 
and  problems  arising  from  the  presenting  by  manufacturers  of  sev- 
eral different  makes  of  aspirin  tablets  with  regard  to  merchandising. 
I,  therefore,  present  for  your  consideration  the  following  data  ob- 
tained from  investigation  of  the  original  aspirin  tablets,  and  those 
of  several  prominent  American  houses  without  any  regard  whatever 
to  the  content  of  aspirin  from  a  chemical  standponit,  but  purely 
1  Read  before  the  meeting  of  the  Pennsylvania  Pharmaceutical  Associa- 
tion, Wilkesbarre,  June  27,  1918. 
