306 
Assay  for  Sanguinaria. 
( Am.  Jour.  PharrrK 
I       June.  1896. 
tions  have  adopted  standards  for  these  drugs.  These  standards  may 
not  be  absolutely  correct  as  to  the  amount  of  alkaloid  actually 
present ;  but  certain  it  is  that,  when  a  drug  assays  a  given  per  cent, 
of  crude  alkaloid  by  any  process,  and  the  fluid  extract  made  from 
it,  when  assayed  by  the  same  process,  contains  the  same  percentage 
or  slightly  less,  the  drug  has  been  thoroughly  exhausted  and  thus  a 
double  check  is  kept  upon  work  which  formerly  was  far  from  uni- 
form. 
Sanguinaria  is  among  those  drugs  which  have  had  but  little 
attention  paid  to  them  in  this  respect,  and  but  one  or  two  manufac- 
turers standardize  the  preparations  made  from  it. 
Several  of  the  general  assay  processes  which  are  coming  into 
such  widespread  use  were  applied  to  sanguinaria  by  the  author  of 
this  paper,  with  the  expectation  of  obtaining  results  which  would 
permit  the  standardization  of  preparations  made  from  it.  The 
results  were  satisfactory  for  the  purpose  of  standardization,  which 
was  the  proximate  object  of  the  work,  but  while  there  were  points 
of  difference  noticed  between  the  alkaloidal  constituents  of  the  drug, 
no  definite  statement  can  be  made  as  to  the  relations  of  these  con- 
stituents as  determined  in  the  process  used  for  assay. 
The  processes  used  in  the  experiments  performed  by  the  author 
were  those  based  upon  digestion  of  the  ground  drug,  or  its  prepara- 
tion, for  a  given  length  of  time  with  certain  solvents,  in  the  presence 
of  an  excess  of  ammonia,  subsequent  separation  of  the  alkaloid 
being  effected  by  the  use  of  immiscible  solvents.  The  application 
of  this  process  in  general  has  been  widely  increased  of  late  by  the 
work  of  Messrs.  Keller,  Beckurts,  Nagelvoort,  Dohme,  Kebler,  Cas- 
pari,  and  others.  No  names  will  be  applied  to  the  processes  here- 
after described,  but  they  will  be  designated  by  numbers  instead. 
The  methods  used  were  as  follows: 
Macerate  for  four  hours  with  frequent  agitation  ;  then  add  5  grammes  addi- 
tional of  aqua  ammonia  ;  shake  well  and  separate  the  quantity  required  for 
aseay. 
No.  J. 
Drug  (No.  50  powder)  . 
Ivight  chloroform  ether1 
Aqua  ammonias  .... 
10  grammes. 
too  " 
10 
1  Light  chloroform  ether  consists  of  3  volumes  ether  and  1  volume  of  chloroform 
