'^De'cembe/igis1'}  Advances  in  Materia  Medica  and  Pharmacy.  561 
address  delivered  by  Professor  Francis  Carter  Wood  before  the 
Alumni  of  the  College  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons,  and  in  its  editorial 
columns  commented  quite  freely  thereon.  The  gist  of  the  Sun's 
editorial  is  a  warning  to  the  public  to  shun  the  proprietary-prescribing 
physician. 
It  impresses  in  unmistakable  language  the  possibilities  of  harm 
to  the  patient  in  the  acceptance  of  prescriptions  from  medical  men 
who  are  too  indolent  or  unscientific  to  think  out  and  write  their  own 
prescriptions ;  who  know  nothing  of  the  composition  of  what  they 
prescribe  except  what  the  proprietor  chooses  to  tell  them,  and  who 
certainly  have  not  the  time  nor  the  knowledge  to  find  out  if  the 
manufacturer  is  telling  the  truth.  It  goes  on  to  say  that  we  "  trust 
the  doctor  because  we  know  him,  and  that  this  trust  is  misplaced  if 
he  prescribes  a  drug  the  composition  of  which  he  does  not  know." 
That  the  newspapers  could  be  of  considerable  influence  in  correct- 
ing this  evil  goes  without  saying,  but  their  interest  must  become  more 
general.  (Editorial,  New  York  Sun,  October  7,  191 5,  through 
Journ.  A.M.  A.) 
The  Assay  of  Balsam  of  Peru. — The  authors  of  this  paper 
state  that  for  the  assay  of  this  balsam  a  number  of  tests  have  been 
proposed  and  are  to  be  found  in  the  various  pharmacopoeias  and 
similar  publications ;  that  those  depending  on  color  reactions  are 
usually  unreliable  and  of  limited  value.  Much  stress  is  laid  on  the 
acid  value,  saponification  \alue,  cinnamein  content  and  its 
saponification  value ;  that  the  determination  of  these  constants  is 
generally  required  by  the  best  of  authorities,  and  yet  it  is  obvious, 
they  add,  that  such  values  are  far  from  being  absolutely  character- 
istic ;  that  they  are  insufficient  to  demonstrate  the  purity  or  authen- 
ticity of  a  sample  is  a  fact  unpleasantly  brought  to  their  attention  by 
the  appearance,  in  recent  years,  of  imitation  or  "  synthetic  "  balsams 
almost  indistinguishable  from  the  natural  product. 
In  a  thorough  examination  of  balsam  of  Peru  made  by  Thorns 
there  was  isolated,  among  other  things,  a  new  alcohol,  peruviol. 
This  compound,  a  light  liquid  with  a  characteristic  odor,  was  subse- 
quently found  to  be  identical  with  nerolidol,  the  sesquiterpene  alcohol 
isolated  by  Hesse  and  Zeitschel  from  the  high-boiling  fractions  of  oil 
of  orange  flowers. 
The  authors  believe  that  peruviol,  with  its  high  iodine  value  and 
dextro-rotation,  is  the  most  characteristic  constituent  of  the  balsam, 
and  they  advise  the  following  simple  method  for  isolating  it : 
