Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Nov.  1,  1873. 
[- }    Minutes  of  Pharmaceutical  Meetings. 
521 
Owing  to  the  lateness  of  the  hour  at  which  the  meeting  was  convened,  on 
account  of  a  preceding  meeting  occupying  so  much  of  the  time,  the  number  of 
members  remaining  was  small. 
Prof.  Maisch  read  a  letter  from  Clemmons  Parrish,  tendering  his  resignation 
as  Registrar,  his  present  engagements  preventing  his  attending  to  the  duties 
of  the  office.    On  motion,  his  resignation  was  accepted. 
This  being  the  regular  time  for  electing  a  Registrar,  as  provided  in  the  by- 
laws, Joseph  P.  Remington  was  elected  to  fill  the  office. 
Richard  V.  Mattison  read  a  paper  on  Fluid  Extract  of  Ipecac,*  in  which  he 
suggests  an  improvement  in  the  present  officinal  formula,  by  depriving  the 
percolate  of  the  peculiar  substance  which  causes  turbidity,  and  decreasing  the 
proportion  of  glycerin  12£  per  cent. 
Dr.  W.  H.  Pile  called  attention  to  a  sample  of  adulterated  oil  of  gaultheria, 
which  seems  now  to  be  pressing  on  the  market.  The  adulterating  substance 
he  found  to  be  chloroform,  and  the  means  adopted  for  detecting  the  fraud  were, 
first,  by  taking  the  specific  gravity,  and,  spc  )ndly,  noting  the  boiling-point. 
The  specific  gravity  of  true  oil  of  gaultheria  is  1*18,  whilst  that  of  the  sample 
in  question  was  1*24.  The  boiling-point  of  the  true  oil  is  400°  F.,  whilst  the 
adulterated  oil  boiled  actively  at  200°  F.  By  shaking  the  adulterated  oil  in  a 
test-tube,  after  slightly  warming,  the  odor  of  chloroform  is  distinctly  apparent. 
He  ascertained  that  this  impurity  existed  in  the  oil  in  the  proportion  of  1  part 
of  chloroform  to  4  parts  of  oil,  and  his  mode  of  arriving  at  the  quantitative 
estimation  consisted  in  mixing  certain  proportions  of  chloroform  and  oil 
together  until  he  obtained  the  same  specific  gravity  as  the  adulterated  sample 
had. 
Charles  Bullock  stated  that  he  had  met  with  two  cans  of  the  oil,  which  he 
thought  probably  belonged  to  the  same  lot  as  that  mentioned  by  Dr.  Pile,  and 
he  exhibited  a  very  neat  and  convenient  little  apparatus  for  detecting  and  sep- 
arating the  mixed  liquids  by  fractional  distillation.  It  consisted  of  a  small  glass 
flask,  into  which  -the  oil  was  poured  ;  a  bulb-like  stopper,  having  a  tubulure  at 
the  top,  which  had  a  rather  long  tube  leading  from  it  at  a  similar  angle  to 
that  usually  seen  in  alembics,  and  a  thermometer,  which  passed  through  the 
tubulure  and  into  the  bulb  of  the  stopper.  If  heat  is  now  applied  to  the  flask, 
the  temperature  of  the  vapor  which  fills  the  bulb  and  is  being  condensed  can 
easily  be  read  off.  By  this  method  he  was  able  to  separate  the  chloroform  from 
the  oil,  and  he  also  found  that  it  contained  a  very  large  portion  of  oil  of  sassa- 
fras. The  manner  in  which  the  oil  had  been  made  seemed  to  have  been : 
Take  4  or  5  lbs.  oil  of  sassafras,  1  lb.  oil  of  gaultheria,  and  chloroform  suffi- 
cient quantity  to  bring  up  the  specific  gravity  to  the  right  point. 
Prof.  Maisch,  speaking  of  oil  of  gaultheria  adulterated  with  oil  of  sassafras, 
said  that  when  the  adulterated  oil  is  treated  in  the  cold  with  commercial  nitric 
acid  a  deep  red  resinous  mass  separates,  whilst  the  pure  oil  of  gaultheria  is  not 
colored  by  it. 
Charles  Bullo/ik  reported  that,  having  some  suspicions  that  the  heavy  lubri- 
*See  page  481  of  this  number. 
