Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
September,  1915.  J 
Wine  of  Beef  and  Iron. 
409 
effect  in  preventing  subsequent  precipitation.  It  is  wasteful  of 
time  and  alcohol  and  is  unnecessary.  In  a  good  grade  of  beef  extract 
the  sodium  chloride  present  and  entering  into  solution  in  the  wine 
of  beef  is  not  objectionable. 
On  the  addition  of  a  ferric  salt,  either  the  tincture  of  citro- 
chloride  of  iron  or  the  ferric  and  ammonium  citrate,  (the  latter  being 
the  salt  originally  used  and  still  preferred  by  many  manufacturers), 
there  is  produced  at  once  a  brown  precipitate  containing  iron,  and, 
even  after  filtering,  further  precipitation  continues  to  form  with 
reduction  in  both  iron  and  proteid  content.  This  precipitation  is  not 
influenced  by  the  preliminary  treatment  and  occurs  if  this  direction 
be  followed  or  omitted. 
It  was  found  that  this  precipitate  was  largely  organic  salts  of 
iron,  probably  the  albuminate,  with,  at  times,  some  peptonate,  and 
that  on  adding  sodium  hydroxide  or  ammonia  water  to  neutral  or 
just  alkaline  reaction  to  litmus  paper  the  precipitate  very  largely 
redissolved,  and,  further,  that  if  the  preparation  be  then  filtered, 
further  precipitation  did  not  occur  if  alcohol  was  present  in  suffi- 
cient amount  to  prevent  fermentation. 
The  sherry  wine  is  usually  decidedly  acid,  and  the  amount  of 
alkali  needed  to  obtain  neutrality  is  larger  than  one  would  expect. 
Either  sodium  hydroxide  or  ammonia  will  answer  equally  well  for 
neutralizing,  but  the  latter  is  preferred,  because  an  excess  is  more 
readily  detected. 
The  present  N.  F.  formula  yields  a  preparation  containing  only 
from  13  to  15  per  cent,  of  alcohol.  This  varies  with  the  thoroughness 
with  which  the  alcohol  is  distilled  off  in  the  preliminary  treatment 
and  the  loss  of  alcohol  occurring  at  the  same  time  and  also  with  the 
alcoholic  content  of  the  sherry  wine  added,  which  commonly  is  from 
18  to  20  per  cent.  It  was  found  that  the  decomposition  did  not 
occur  if  the  alcoholic  content  in  the  finished  preparation  was  in- 
creased to  not  less  than  20  per  cent. 
125  Cc.  of  syrup  likewise  appears  as  excessive,  and  this  can  be 
reduced  to  100  Cc.  without  affecting  the  palatability.  The  quantity 
of  extract  of  beef  now  directed,  33  Gm.,  can  be  rounded  off  to  30 
Gm.,  or  approximately  3  per  cent. 
Based  on  these  facts  and  experiments,  I  submit  the  following 
improved  formula  for  wine  of  beef  and  iron : 
