432  MANUFACTURE,  IMPURITIES  AND  TESTS  OF  CHLOROFORM. 
fluence,  except  through  discriminations  and  rejections  of  the 
articles  supplied. 
These  are  some  of  the  prominent  conditions  upon  which  a 
medical  skepticism,  in  the  community  and  profession,  is  so 
steadily  gaining  ground,  and  therefore,  the  bad  condition  and 
prospects  of  the  materia  medica  deserve  the  most  serious  atten- 
tion from  all  medical  men.  Uncertainty  in  medicine  is  prover- 
bial, and  the  rapid  progress  in  the  science  has  not  had  the  effect 
of  diminishing  duly  the  force  of  the  proverb  in  the  community 
at  large ;  for  the  slowly  increasing  confidence  of  the  educated 
portions  of  the  community  is  not  proportionate  to  the  advance- 
ment in  knowledge  and  skill  in  the  profession.  In  view  of  these 
circumstances,  the  writer  would  respectfully  urge  upon  this 
association  the  importance  of  the  question,  as  to  how  far  the 
bad  and  uncertain  quality  of  medicinal  substances  as  now  com- 
monly used  enters  into  this  result, — and  whether  the  modern 
reading  of  the  proverbial  uncertainty  should  not  be  directed 
against  the  implements  of  the  art,  rather  than  against  the  science. 
In  the  failure  of  medicinal  substances  to  fulfil  the  indications 
for  their  use,  let  the  medical  man  more  frequently  call  in  question 
the  character  or  quality  of  the  agent  than  the  sufficiency  of  the 
principles  upon  which  the  use  was  based. 
With  such  claims  upon  this  association  for  its  interest  and  in- 
dulgence, the  following  matter  is  volunteered  as  information  on 
the  manufacture,  properties,  tests,  and  application  of  what  is 
regarded  as  purely  medicinal  chloroform. 
Forty  pounds  of  chlorinated  lime,  previously  made  into  a  paste 
with  water  and  passed  between  wooden  rollers,  is  introduced  into 
a  forty  gallon  wooden  still  or  barrel,  and  then  diluted  to  the 
volume  of  fifteen  gallons  with  water  or  chloroform  washings. 
This  mixture  is  then  heated  and  agitated  by  the  direct  applica- 
tion of  steam  through  a  perforated  pipe  till  the  temperature  rises 
to  145°.  Four  pints  of  alcohol  are  then  blown  into  the  mixture 
with  the  current  of  steam,  and  the  heating  continued  till  the 
temperature  is  about  145°,  when  the  steam  is  shut  off  entirely 
and  the  mixture  abandoned  to  its  own  reactions.  Upon  auscul- 
tating the  still,  a  perfect  vesicular  murmur  is  heard.  This  in- 
creases gradually  to  active  frothing  ebullition,  yielding  vapors 
of  chloroform,  undecomposed  alcohol,  chlorine,  hydrochloric,  and 
