AmAug.?iflarm'}   Report  on  Samples  of  Ipecacuanha.  393 
(23)  Ipecacuanha  stems  have  no  official  value,  indeed,  they  have 
no  official  position. 
(24)  The  2  per  cent,  of  emetine  I  find  present  in  the  official 
ipecacuanha  of  these  two  samples  of  so-called  ipecacuanha  is  some- 
what above  the  average  proportion  of  emetine  present  in  official 
ipecacuanha ;  for  though  still  higher  proportions  have  been 
recorded,  a  large  number  of  lower  proportions  have  been  published ; 
my  own  analyses  of  other  samples  also  point  to  at  most  1  ^  rather 
than  2  per  cent. 
(25)  But,  in  truth,  nature  knows  no  "  average  "  proportion  of 
alkaloid  in  drugs ;  differences  in  soil  and  climate  in  different  places, 
or  in  the  same  place  in  different  years,  causing  great  variations. 
Secondly,  while  such  an  alkaloid  as,  say  quinine  or  morphine,  has 
at  least  fixed  and  definite  properties,  the  so-called  "  emetine  "  has 
not  yet  been  obtained  in  a  sufficiently  fixed  and  definite  condition 
to  enable  us  to  say  that  it  is  one  single  substance,  emetine,  and 
nothing  else  ;  hence,  analysts  at  present  have  to  rely  on  the  general 
alkaloidal  characters  of  the  article  termed  "  emetine  "  which  they 
extract  from  ipecacuanha.  Thirdly,  the  acids  and  alkalies  that  are 
used  by  analysts  attack  "  emetine,'*  therefore  the  yield  of  "emetine" 
will  only  be  constant  when  the  conditions  of  manipulation  are 
constant. 
(26)  A  conventional  process  for  the  assay  of  ipecacuanha, 
described  with  great  detail  and  under  well-recognized  authority, 
will  doubtless  be  forthcoming  in  due  time  if  no  more  scientific  process 
should  be  discovered.  Meanwhile,  if  analysts  were  to  extract  with 
cold  ammoniacal  chloroform  first,  and  hot  afterwards,  and  conduct 
any  evaporation  at  as  low  a  temperature  as  possible,  maximum  and 
fairly  concordant  results  as  regards  any  one  sample  analyzed  by  dif- 
ferent analysts  might  be  expected. 
(27)  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  any  future  authoritatively  enjoined 
"  standardization  "  of  ipecacuanha  founded  on  proportion  of  emetine 
will  be  therapeutically  satisfactory,  but  such  a  position  is  not  yet 
attained.  Indeed,  it  would  seem  that  ipecacuanha  root  from  which 
all  "  emetine "  is  removed  still  has  pharmacological  value.  The 
latter  may  or  may  not  run  parallel  with  percentage  of  "  emetine." 
Meanwhile,  our  only  guide  is  "  emetine  "  estimated  with  all  attaina- 
ble accuracy. 
(28)  We  may  be  said  to  know  nothing,  and  to  be  able  to  infer  but 
