AmjJu0]y?i896arm"}     Standardization  of  Solid  Extracts.  367 
required  quantity,  or  whether  it  will  be  necessary  to  use  a  hammer 
and  a  cold  chisel  to  get  it  out  of  the  jar.  The  definition  pilular 
consistence  is  now,  and  always  will  be,  subject  to  as  many  different 
interpretations  as  there  are  pharmacists.  This  difficulty  (which  will 
never  be  entirely  overcome)  is  of  minor  importance  to  the  real  one, 
i.  e.,  the  lack  of  uniformity  in  strength,  when  compared  with  the 
drug  itself.  This  has  been  referred  to  frequently,  but  has  not  yet 
been  remedied. 
It  is  a  matter  of  grave  importance  when  we  realize  that  the 
quantity  of  extractive  matter  obtained  from  a  drug  bears  no  definite 
ratio  to  the  percentage  of  its  active  constituents  or  to  its  medicinal 
efficacy,  but  is  influenced  almost  solely  by  the  degree  of  dilution  of 
the  alcoholic  menstruum  employed  in  the  percolation  of  the  drug. 
An  unscrupulous  manufacturer  can  obtain  twice  as  much  solid  ex- 
tract from  a  given  drug  as  one  who  works  according  to  the  Pharma- 
copoeia. His  profits,  therefore,  are  doubly  great,  and  it  matters  little 
to  him  that  his  preparation  is  deficient  in  medicinal  value,  since 
there  is  no  standard  to  which  his  product  must  conform. 
Among  the  leading  manufacturers  of  the  present  time  the  watch, 
word  is  standardization,  and,  by  its  aid,  is  being  developed  a  uni- 
formity in  many  preparations  even  when  made  from  drugs  of  vary- 
ing quality.  There  has  been  much  said  both  for  and  against  this 
movement,  but  its  opponents  are  few,  and  by  this  time  must  realize 
that  it  is  neither  an  advertisement  nor  a  fad,  but  is  the  natural  out- 
come of  the  evolutionary  forces  that  have  long  been  at  work  in  the 
science  of  practical  pharmacy,  and,  in  the  cases  ot  opium,  cinchona 
and  nux  vomica,  there  are  requirements  in  the  present  Pharmaco- 
poeia both  for  the  drugs  and  some  of  the  preparations  made  from 
them.  Since  the  last  revision  of  that  important  work,  however, 
many  additional  drugs  have  been  investigated,  and,  at  the  meeting 
of  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association  in  1895,  the  Committee 
on  the  Revision  of  the  Pharmacopoeia  recommended  that  standards 
and  processes  of  assay  be  adopted  also  for  coca  leaves,  Hydrastis 
and  pilocarpus. 
If  convenient  and  appropriate  standards  be  adopted  for  the  solid 
extracts  of  such  drugs  as  have  principles  which  are  easily  estimated, 
the  remaining  difficulty  would  only  consist  in  the  preservation  of 
the  extracts  so  as  to  retain  the  consistence  which  they  possessed  at 
the  time  of  manufacture.   When  about  4  or  5  per  cent,  ot  glycerin 
