268 
Commercial  Aloes. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharnu 
June,  1903. 
From  what  has  been  said  of  Barbadoes  aloes  it  will  be  seen  that 
probably  none  of  the  aloes  sold  in  this  country,  at  the  present  time, 
comes  from  the  island  of  Barbadoes,  practically  all  of  it  being  from 
the  Dutch  West  Indies,  so-called  Curacao  aloes,  which,  when  sold 
as  Barbadoes  aloes,  usually  brings  two  or  even  three  times  its  regu- 
lar price. 
A  considerable  amount  of  what  is  offered  in  this  country  as  Cape 
or  even  Socotrine  aloes  appears  to  be  nothing  but  a  better  quality 
of  Curacao  aloes.  As  noted  under  "  Curacao  aloes,"  a  large  propor- 
tion ot  this  variety  is  now  being  prepared  to  simulate  Cape  aloes  in 
physical  appearances.  Capey  Curacao  can,  however,  readily  be  told 
from  true  Cape  aloes  by  the  total  absence  of  any  greenish  tint  and 
by  the  fact  that  it  readily  gives  a  deep  red'color  with  strong  nitric 
acid,  or  with  Klunge's  test,  showing  the  presence  of  iso-barb-aloin. 
One  other  fraud  that  is  said  to  be  practiced  quite  extensively  in 
Europe  is  the  selling  of  aloe  resin,  from  which  the  aloin  has  been 
removed,  as  Cape  aloes.52  This  may  usually  be  detected  by  its  com- 
parative insolubility  in  acidulated  water  and  by  tests  for  iso-barb- 
aloin,  it  being  extremely  difficult  to  remove  all  the  aloin  from  the 
resinous  material. 
The  following  table  will  give  a  fair  idea  of  the  quality  and  variety 
of  aloes  sold  in  this  country  at  the  present  time.  It  may  be  well  to 
add  that,  with  the  exception  of  the  Natal  aloes,  all  the  samples 
responded  to  Borntraeger's  test. 
SUMMARY  OF  TABLE  No.  i. 
Name. 
Number 
Examined. 
Containing 
Barb-aloin. 
Aloes  Containing 
Iso-barb-aloin. 
26 
20 
6 
24 
19 
5 
18 
17 
11 
0 
11 
The  samples  enumerated  in  Table  No.  1  represent  only  samples 
obtained  from  wholesale  houses  and  drug  brokers  in  different  parts 
of  the  United  States.  Samples  obtained  from  retail  stores,  and 
museum  specimens  that  were  used  for  control  or  comparison,  were 
not  tabulated. 
In  addition  to    the  samples  enumerated  above,  the  following; 
