ON  COMMERCIAL  JALAP. 
67 
paper.  These  four  instances  coming  naturally  and  unsought  for, 
within  the  observation  of  one  who  sees  so  little  of  this  drug  as 
the  writer  does,  leads  to  the  inference  that  these  were  not  the 
only  cases  of  this  kind  which  occurred  within  the  past  six  years ; 
and  the  testimony  of  so  good  an  authority  as  Mr.  Daniel  Han- 
bury,  of  London,  has  recently  been  given  to  the  variable  and 
precarious  character  of  this  drug,  as  found  in  the  market  with 
which  he  is  so  familiar. 
In  reasoning  upon  the  condition  of  jalap  here  mentioned,  with 
the  specimens  under  close  observation,  the  writer  has  arrived 
theoretically  at  the  conclusion  that  all  such  jalap  is  partially 
exhausted  in  Mexico  before  being  exported,  and  that  increasing 
skill  in  this  practice  and  close  calculation  of  the  neat  results  in 
the  markets  is  leading  those  who  practice  this  fraud  to  a  more 
and  more  limited  exhaustion,  in  order  better  to  escape  detection. 
The  facility  of  exporting  alcohol  cheaply  from  this  country  adds 
to  the  probability  of  the  view  here  taken. 
An  assay  of  jalap  is  one  of  the  simplest  and  easiest  processes 
in  applied  Pharmacy,  and  no  pharmacist  should  buy  or  dispense 
powdered  jalap  without  previously  testing  it.  About  an  ounce 
of  the  powder,  carefully  weighed  to  within  a  grain,  is  thoroughly 
wetted  with  say  l|-f <f  of  stronger  alcohol,  and  the  mixture  trans- 
ferred to  a  small  funnel  arranged  for  percolation.  Stronger 
alcohol  is  then  poured  on  top  until  the  percolate  ceases  to  give 
a  cloudiness,  when  a  drop  is  allowed  to  fall  into  a  vessel  of  water. 
The  percolate  is  then  evaporated  to  a  syrupy  consistence,  and  a 
little  water  carefully  added  to  it  while  hot.  It  is  then  poured 
into  4f§  of  cold  water,  with  active  stirring,  and  the  precipitated 
soft  resin  collected  in  a  capsule  and  dried  with  constant  stirring 
until  a  thread  of  it  drawn  out  by  the  stirrer  is  perfectly  brittle. 
The  capsule  having  been  previously  tared,  it  is  now  very  easy 
to  obtain  the  weight  of  the  dry  resin,  and  calculate  its  percent- 
age proportion  to  the  powder.  As  the  ordinary  merchantable 
root  yields  from  11  to  16  per  cent.,  and  as  this  loses  from  10  to 
14  per  cent,  in  powdering,  any  sample  of  powder  that  does  not 
yield  over  12  per  cent,  of  dry  resin  should  be  at  once  rejected  as 
unfit  for  medicinal  use. 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  Aug.  21st,  1867. 
— Proc.  Am.  Pharm.  Association,  1867. 
