Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
May,  1915. 
Remarks  on  Digitalis. 
213 
apparent.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  he  did  not  also  examine  the  marc 
left  after  making  the  infusion.   Later  on,  in  the  same  article,  he  says  : 
"  An  infusion  from  a  fiuidextract  might  be  unsightly,  but  it 
would  probably  be  more  active  than  the  official  infusion  which  one 
would  obtain  from  the  nearest  pharmacy.  This  practice  is  distinctly 
not  advocated,  but  pharmacists  should  understand  the  fact." 
We  ask;  Why  not  advocate  it  if  it  makes  a  better  infusion? 
And  if  the  tincture  and  infusion  are  of  equal  value,  why  not  make 
the  infusion  from  the  tincture,  or  why  not  delete  one  or  the  other? 
In  direct  contradiction  to  Hatcher's  results  we  will  cite  Herz- 
feld: 
"  According  to  the  methods  of  Keller-Fromme,  no  digitoxin  or 
digitalin  could  be  detected  in  an  infusion  prepared  according  to  the 
U.  S.  P.,  while  in  an  infusion,  made  after  my  method,  as  high  as 
0.02086  per  cent,  digitoxin  could  be  found." 
Doctor  Herzfeld's  method  is  as  follows :  The  leaves  are  finely 
broken  up  and  freed  from  the  stems  and  ribs.  They  are  then  covered 
with  the  entire  quantity  of  boiling  water  and  allowed  to  digest  upon 
the  water-bath  at  50 0  C.  for  one  hour.  When  cooled  down  to  about 
320  C.  an  amount  of  alcohol  corresponding  to  10  per  cent,  of  the 
finished  infusion  is  added  and  the  whole  permitted  to  stand  for  12 
hours.  The  resulting  product  is  then  filtered,  the  leaves  expressed, 
and  the  necessary  amount  of  water  added  to  restore  the  volume. 
Later  on  he  says  that  this  "  infusion  "  (it  is  rather  a  weak  tincture) 
should  always  be  prepared  fresh.  This  would  compel  the  patient  to 
wait  about  14  hours  for  his  medicine,  a  rather  long  wait  for  cardiac 
patients. 
In  an  editorial  of  the  American  Druggist,  1913,  vol.  16,  p.  12, 
the  statement  is  made  that : 
"  According  to  Henry  Beates,  not  one  physician  in  ten  can  tell 
the  difference  in  the  effect  produced  by  an  infusion  of  digitalis  made 
from  a  fiuidextract  and  that  produced  by  one  made  from  the  assayed 
leaf." 
This  may  be  interpreted  that  physicians  are  not  able  to  tell  the 
effect  of  their  medicine,  or  that  Doctor  Hatcher's  statement  of  in- 
fusions made  from  fiuidextract  is  correct. 
As  to  the  reliability  of  the  fiuidextract  itself,  we  quote  J.  D. 
Riedel : 
"  Fiuidextract  of  digitalis  U.  S.  P.  VIII  was  found  to  vary  in 
