AMiyt?,'iP874RM"}    Notes  071  Sugar-coated  Quinia  Pills.  219 
By  referring  to  page  204  of  the  April  number,  I  find  a  plan  for 
keeping  hydrocyanic  acid,  which  need  only  be  tried  to  be  condemned  : 
mercury  at  one  end,  with  vulcanized  rubber  at  the  other,  and  the  ele- 
ments of  ammonia  in  the  middle,  will  require  a  very  short  time  to 
develop  a  fine  odor  of  hydro-sulphuret  of  ammonia.  This  was  proven 
to  me  some  years  ago,  a  Boston  firm  having  put  this  acid  up  in  blue  one 
ounce  bottles  with  vulcanized  rubber  stoppers.  The  style  was  splendid, 
but  the  contents  of  the  bottle  would  never  be  mistaken  for  hydrocy- 
anic acid. 
Covington,  Kg.,  April  15,  1874. 
NOTES  ON  SUGAR-COATED  QUINIA  PILLS. 
By  A.  B.  Lyons,  M.  D.,  Detroit,  Mich. 
At  the  request  of  a  physician  I  recently  made  an  examination  of 
some  samples  of  sugar-coated  quinia  pills,  which  are  offered  for  sale 
in  this  city.  The  principal  objects  sought  in  the  investigation  were 
three,  viz :  1st,  to  ascertain  whether  the  pills  contained  the  full 
amount  of  quinia  claimed  on  the  labels.  2d,  to  determine  to  what  ex- 
tent other  alkaloids  of  bark  are  substituted  for  quinia  in  their  manu- 
facture. 3d,  to  arrive  at  some  simple  plan  for  estimating  approxi- 
mately the  quantity  of  quinia  they  contain. 
The  pills  examined  were  from  five  prominent  manufacturing  houses, 
which  are  designated  in  this  paper  simply  by  numbers.  The  results 
as  tabulated  below,  show  that  such  an  investigation  was  not  uncalled- 
for.  Physicians  who  prescribe  quinia  in  the  form  of  sugar-coated  pills 
«an  no  longer  wonder  at  the  uncertainty  of  the  effects  obtained  there- 
from. 
The  method  pursued  in  the  research  was  a  simple  one.  The  pills 
were  digested  in  a  little  water,  acidulated  with  hydrochloric  acid, 
until  completely  dissolved  or  disintegrated.  Caustic  potash  was  then 
added  in  excess,  and  the  mixture  was  repeatedly  shaken  with  ether 
to  dissolve  out  the  precipitated  alkaloids.  The  residue  from  the 
evaporation  of  this  ethereal  solution,  after  drying  in  a  hot  air-bath7 
was  accurately  weighed,  and  thus  the  total  amount  of  alkaloid  soluble 
in  ether  was  determined. 
If  the  quinine  were  tolerably  pure,  ether  would  extract  the  alkaloid 
perfectly,  and  the  solution  would  exhibit  no  tendency  to  crystallize, 
and  would  leave,  on  evaporation,  an  easily  fusible  residue  of  a  gummy 
