68  Observations  on  Fluid  Acetracts. 
conclusions  as  would  naturally  form  in  the  mind  of  any  pharmacist 
who  has  become  reasonably  familiar  with  the  practice  of  instituting 
comparisons — more  of  a  familiar,  we  may  say,  than  of  a  technical 
examination. 
The  first  impression  is  that  there  is  presented  in  these  fluid  "ace- 
tracts" a  method  of  procedure  and  result  which  completely  revolu- 
tionizes all  former  conclusions  and  absolutely  deranges  all  previous 
theories  as  to  what  constitutes  the  best  general  solvent  for  all  those 
varied,  complex  constituents  of  drugs  and  other  medicinal  substances ; 
for  we  are  restricted,  in  preparing  "acetracts,"  to  what  is  practically 
an  aqueous  menstruum.  If  the  original  menstruum  of  our  infusions, 
reinforced  with  but  a  small  percentage  addition  of  a  vegetable  acid, 
will  prove  a  better  or  an  equally  good  solvent  for  the  alkaloidal 
and  other  active  constituents  of  miscellaneous  drugs,  then  all  our 
previous  teaching  has  been  at  naught,  and  alcohol,  that  universal 
agent  of  extraction  and  solution,  must  be  relegated,  as  far  as  future 
uses  are  concerned,  to  the  anatomical  jars  of  the  pathological 
museum  or  to  a  curtailed  use  in  the  arts. 
Experience  and  practice  extending  over  an  unlimited  period  of 
observation  in  pharmacy  has  apparently  fixed  and  confirmed  the 
value  of  alcohol,  in  varying  proportions  with  aqueous  media,  as 
being  the  true  and  only  known  natural  solvent  for  all  the  useful 
vegetable  matter  with  which  the  active  medicinal  principles  are 
allied  in  drugs.  We  are  without  any  intelligent  explanation  from 
scientists  as  to  the  character  of  the  peculiar  property  of  alcohol 
and  its  congeners,  the  ethers,  as  a  solvent.  We  must,  in  our  igno- 
rance, conclude  that  its  penetrative  and  searching  quality  is  sui 
generis.  How  can  we,  then,  regard  any  substitution  for  this  dis- 
tinguishing quality  by  a  purely  aqueous  menstruum,  although 
slightly  acidified,  as  other  than  a  retrograde  step  and  a  partial 
return  to  primitive  infusions,  only  saved  from  an  inevitable  decom- 
position by  the  intervention  of  an  antiseptic  vinegar  ?  We  are  left 
in  doubt  as  to  the  precise  part,  other  than  that,  that  the  acetic  acid 
can  possibly  exert  in  the  small  percentage  additions  which  are  made 
of  it  to  the  exhausting  menstrua.  Surely  it  cannot  be  contended  that 
a  10  per  cent,  addition  of  acetic  acid  to  water  would  be  likely  to 
materially  increase  the  solvent  power  of  water.  One  marked 
feature  in  some  of  the  "  acetracts"  is  the  absence  of  a  certain 
gravity  and  density  which  is  always  observable  in  official  and  standard 
