ncS^.Srr-}         T^^<^         Content  of  Drugs.  475 
published  in  1882,  and  also  appears  in  connection  with  a  limited 
number  of  the  drugs  described  in  the  U.S. P.  of  the  same  period. 
The  number  of  official  limitations  for  ash  was  increased  but  slowly 
and  in  the  German  Pharmacopoeia  for  1900  we  find  but  12  while 
in  the  corresponding  U.S. P.  VIII  there  are  15  such  requirements 
in  connection  with  the  monographs  for  crude  drugs. 
The  Netherlands  Pharmacopoeia  published  in  1905  appears  to 
have  been  the  first  of  the  more  widely  known  pharmacopoeias  to 
include  an  appreciable  number  of  ash  determinations,  a  total  of  41. 
In  the  Ph.  Austr.  VIII,  published  in  1906,  this  number  is  in- 
creased to  147,  the  maximum  up  to  the  present  time,  though  the 
aggregate  of  the  Ph.  Helv.  IV  is  nearly  if  not  quite  as  great. 
The  Ph.  Svec.  IX,  published  in  1908,  contains  but  a  compara- 
tively few  definite  figures,  and  the  Ph.  Hung.  Ill,  published  in 
1909,  despite  the  fact  that  it  follows  the  Austrian  Pharmacopoeia  in 
many  of  the  official  requirements  includes  but  a  limited  number  of 
limitations  for  ash. 
The  German  Pharmacopoeia,  which  for  some  decades  appears  to 
have  served  as  a  model  for  the  elaboration  of  our  own  U.S. P.,  has 
been  continued  within  conservative  lines  and  the  new  D.A.B.V. 
published  in  1910  contains  but  a  total  of  34  requirements  for  ash 
content. 
The  impracticability  of  deducing  any  definite  generalizations 
from  the  permissible  limitations  for  ash  included  in  the  several 
pharmacopoeias  is  well  illustrated  by  the  appended  table.  For  many 
of  the  drugs  the  figures  vary  from  10  to  100  per  cent,  and  in  the 
limited  number  of  cases  where  there  is  little  or  no  variation,  lupulin, 
for  instance,  the  figures  given  have  been  found  to  be  altogether  too 
low  for  the  commercially  available  product. 
The  variation  in  the  actual  ash  content  of  drugs  necessarily  de- 
pends on  many  factors  that  are  entirely  beyond  the  control  of  the 
pharmacist  or  the  dealer  in  drugs,  but  the  frequently  observed 
variation  in  the  ash  content  of  the  same  sample  or  lot  of  a  drug  is 
due  to  causes  that  are  deserving  of  careful  consideration  on  the  part 
of  the  revisers  of  the  Pharmacopoeia.  The  fundamentally  important 
factors  for  securing  uniformity  are  to  be  sought  in  the  method  of 
incineration  and  the  method  of  sampling  employed  therewith. 
In  the  routine  work  of  the  ordinary  analytical  laboratory  it  is 
impracticable  to  incinerate  more  than  1  or  2  Gms.  of  a  sample  of 
crude  drug,  and  it  is  quite  apparent  tlial  it  would  1)c  difficult  indeed 
