MISCELLANY. 
Adulteration of Drugs. — Professor Thomson, in his examination before 
the Medical Poor Inquiry Committee, stated that the trader sorts the 
drugs; the purest kind he sells in its natural state, the second kind he 
reserves for powders, and the worst of all he uses for tinctures, and this 
inferior kind is very often in a state of decomposition. Frauds are often 
practised in the drug market. Opium often contains a piece of iron im- 
bedded in it; calomel often consists of a very little more than sulphate of 
barytes, which is an inert substance; and white precipitate of mercury is 
sometimes sold as calomel; but in scammony the adulteration is even more 
remarkable, an immense quantity of chalk being found in it, so that the 
active ingredient in it often varies from 85 per cent, to 81i per cent. 
Gamboge is often a manufactured article; milk of sulphur commonly 
contains one-half of stucco, as is proved by exposing the composition to 
heat. Peruvian bark, as it comes from the hands of the drug grinder, 
consists of charcoal, with Venitian red, Carthagenian bark, lignum vita?, 
and satin wood. Even so late as forty years ago, this composition was 
made by the Apothecary's Company, and was supplied to the army as 
Peruvian bark. It is known that on one occasion two chests of the ge- 
nuine article having been sent to a drug grinder, he put eighteen chests 
of extraneous matter to the two of pure bark, and sold the remaining 
eighteen chests to his own profit. Calamine, or carbonate of zinc, as it 
occurs in commerce, contains very little of zinc at all, consisting princi- 
pally of sulphate of barytes, colored with a little iron. Ginger is adulte- 
rated with 50 per cent, of capsicums, saw-dust, satin-wood, and flour, and 
sometimes the article sold does not contain more than 30 per cent, of 
ginger. Jalap is frequently adulterated with 28 pounds of barley meal 
per cwt., and lignum vita? dust is sometimes used. Liquorice powder is 
made of equal parts of common sugar and barley meal, with a little tur- 
meric. Lac and plumbago are adulterated with coal, and opium with an 
extract of senna, and there is sometimes an infusion of from 30 to 60 per 
cent, of water. Rhubarb is often made of 14 pounds of flour 8 ounces of 
turmeric, and 98 pounds of rhubarb ; and the article sold often contains 
no more than one-half of its weight of rhubarb. Nitrate of silver, which 
is extensively used in medicine, is often adulterated with nitrate of lead. 
Tinctures are diluted with water. A gentleman, now retired from the 
vol. v. — no. 11, 22 
