174 
H cue  her  a  A  mericana. 
f Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
X       April,  1891. 
decoctions  were  of  a  light  chocolate  color,  with  a  slight  fluorescence, 
and  of  a  radish-like  odor  ;  but  varied  in  the  strength  of  their  acid  reac- 
tions. The  filtrates  from  the  precipitates  of  the  gelatin  compound 
were  in  all  cases  clear  and  colorless.  In  the  following  chart,  the 
first  column  marked  "moist"  indicates  the  percentage  of  tannin 
found  in  the  drug  as  collected.  That  marked  "  dry,"  in  the  second 
column,  indicates  the  percentage  of  tannin  calculated  for  the  abso- 
lutely dry  drug.  The  third  column  indicates  the  percentage  of 
moisture  found. 
Time  of 
July  i,  1889,  . 
May  1,  1890,  . 
June  20,  1890,  . 
June  25,  1890,  . 
August  6,  1890, 
October  5,  1890, 
January  15,  1891, 
March  10,  1891, 
The  lot  of  June  20th  was  collected  from  plants  that  had  not 
bloomed  ;  around  these  were  found  plants  that  were  in  bloom.  The 
collection  of  June  25th  consisted  of  roots  from  plants  that  had  flow- 
ered, as  the  calyx  remnants  were  found,  and  the  inner  whorls  were 
absent.  No  special  influences  were  connected  with  the  May,  August 
and  October  drug.  The  roots  gathered  on  January  15th  were 
dug  from  frozen  ground  and  had  been  under  snow  for  some  time. 
The  leaves  were  adhering.  The  lot  of  March  10th  was  also  dug 
from  frozen  ground  but  had  not  experienced  recent  snow. 
For  the  examination  of  the  tannin,  some  of  the  drug  was  exhaus- 
ted with  commercial  ether,  the  solvent  recovered  by  distillation ;  the 
extracted  matter  dissolved  in  water,  fractionally  precipitated  with 
lead  acetate,  the  first  precipitate  rejected,  the  others  washed,  sus- 
pended in  water  and  decomposed  by  hydrogen  sulphide,  the  lead 
sulphide  removed  by  filtration  and  the  tannin  solution  concentrated 
by  distillation  under  reduced  pressure.  The  concentrated  solution 
was  shaken  several  times  with  stronger  ether,  separated  and  distilled 
to  dryness  under  the  above  conditions.    The  material  so  obtained 
Per  cent. 
Moist. 
of  tannin. 
Dry. 
Moisture. 
Starch  cal- 
culated for 
absolutely 
dry. 
5'i7 
2-41 
9"33 
74-18 
3-98 
io-68 
62-74 
4-i6 
1275 
67-38 
5"i8 
17-91 
71-08 
473 
19-66 
.  75'95 
4-64 
6-91 
13 '65 
49-4o 
4*63 
1475 
68-6o 
13-62 
