Am.  Jour.  Pharm. ") 
Feb.,  1884.  / 
Medicated  Waters. 
67 
portion  is  necessarily  lost  upon  the  fingers  in  picking  the  fibres  apart. 
Then  when  it  is  placed  in  the  percolator,  if  packed  too  loose,  the 
added  water  rushes  through  without  dissolving  any  of  the  oil.  If  too 
tight :  the  process  is  impeded  to  such  an  extent  that  percolation  becomes 
impossible.  The  right  degree  of  packing  is  hard  to  obtain  and  when 
secured  yields  but  little  better  results.  As  to  the  use  of  distilled  water, 
very  few  follow  the  pharmacopoeial  directions  in  this  particular.  With- 
out exceptions,  all  pharmacists  with  whom  the  author  has  conversed, 
substitute  ordinary  water  and  claim  in  extenuation,  that  extreme 
purity  of  that  liquid  is  unnecessary,  and  that  they  are  perfectly  justi- 
fied in  the  replacement  from  the  fact  that  distilled  water  is  frequently 
of  a  musty,  unpleasant  odor,  vapid  and  disagreeable  taste  and  as 
likely  may  contain  metallic  impurities  from  the  uncertain,  careless 
methods  of  commercial  manufacture ;  further  their  efficiency  is  called 
into  question  from  the  physiological  fact  that  distilled  water  is  difficult 
of  digestion  and  not  as  acceptable  to  irritable  stomachs.  These 
statements  may  be  regarded  as  extreme,  yet  it  must  be  admitted  that 
the  greatest  efficiency  of  all  medicines  is  desired,  in  a  physiological 
sense  as  well  as  a  pharmaceutical  one.  If  the  reasons  advanced  are 
tenable  and  do  not  arise  from  economic  considerations  they  are  cer- 
tainly worthy  of  further  notice.  Certain  it  is  that  the  products  made 
by  them,  seem  to  give  equal  satisfaction  with  those  made  by  standard 
authority.  In  whatever  way  we  view  the  U.  S.  (1880)  process,  its 
wasteful  and  objectionable  manipulations  are  so  evident,  that  if  the 
imperfections  in  the  directions  of  the  earlier  Pharmacopoeia  (1870) 
were  open  to  severe  comment,  those  of  the  latter  (1880)  are  doubly  so 
by  comparison. 
As  previously  stated,  the  greater  the  subdivision  of  an  oil,  when 
brought  in  contact  with  an  aqueous  solvent,  the  larger  the  quantity 
that  will  necessarily  be  taken  up  in  solution.  As  an  aid  to  this  fact 
and  also  their  supposed  insolubility,  rests  the  adaptability  of  the  bodies 
mentioned  above  as  diffusive  agents.  Some  of  the  objections  to  the  use 
of  magnesium  carbonate  and  several  of  its  proposed  substitutes  have 
already  been  noted.  Upon  trial  I  have  found  precipitated  calcium 
carbonate  to  be  preferable,  mechanically,  to  the  magnesium  salt;  yet  it 
is  open  to  the  same  adverse  criticisms.  Another  possibly  important 
objection  to  the  use  of  alkaline  earth  carbonates,  which  has  not  been 
previously  discussed,  may  reside  in  the  fact  of  the  presence  of  odorous 
volatile  acids,  ethers,  etc.,  in  the  volatile  oils  used  and  the  neutraliza- 
tion of  those  acids  by  the  alkaline  carbonates,  to  form  neutral  and 
