22 
Acetone  as  a  Solvent. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharrru 
X    January,  1898 
advantage  for  the  extraction  of  this  class  of  proximate  principles. 
Prof.  S.  P.  Sadtler1  has  proposed  the  use  of  acetone  in  the  technical 
analysis  of  asphalt.  And  C.  Kippenberger 2  has  employed  it  as  a 
solvent  in  volumetric  determinations  of  alkaloids  by  means  of  Wag- 
ner's reagent. 
In  the  work  upon  which  the  present  article  is  based,  the  author 
endeavored  to  gain  an  idea  of  the  value  of  acetone  as  a  solvent  in 
preparing  some  of  the  official  resins.  And  it  has  been  his  especial 
purpose  to  compare  acetone  as  a  solvent  in  this  connection  with 
official  alcohol.  To  accomplish  this  end,  he  extracted  a  sample  of 
commercial  powdered  jalap  with  official  alcohol,  according  to  the 
directions  of  the  United  States  Pharmacopoeia ;  and,  by  following 
the  subsequent  instructions  of  that  authority  in  regard  to  the  pre- 
cipitation and  washing  of  the  resin,  he  obtained  a  yield  of  65  per 
cent.  The  quantity  of  powdered  jalap  operated  on  was  100  grammes. 
By  substituting  acetone  for  alcohol  in  the  official  process,  he  ob- 
tained a  yield  of  7-5  per  cent,  when  working  with  100  grammes 
of  the  drug. 
Similar  experiments  with  quantities  of  100  grammes  of  powdered 
podophyllum  yielded  4  per  cent,  of  resin  when  alcohol  was  used,  and 
4- 5  per  cent,  when  acetone  was  employed.  The  foregoing  results, 
therefore,  show  an  increased  yield  when  acetone  is  used.  In  extract- 
ing the  resin  from  scammony,  two  lots  of  10  grammes  each  were 
employed.  One  of  these  lots  was  treated  with  successive  portions 
of  boiling  alcohol  until  exhausted..  The  other  lot  was  treated  in 
exactly  the  same  manner  with  boiling  acetone  until  exhausted.  In 
both  cases  the  solution  of  resin  was  evaporated  to  the  same  bulk 
and  poured  into  equal  quantities  of  water.  The  yield  of  resin  was 
the  same  with  the  two  solvents.  It  amounted  to  less  than  60  per 
cent,  for  the  drug  in  its  original  moist  condition.  After  drying  the 
sample  of  scammony  to  a  constant  weight,  the  yield  of  resin  by  the 
same  method  was  found  to  be  63  per  cent,  by  both  solvents. 
There  was  no  marked  difference  in  color  between  the  samples  of 
resin  prepared  from  the  same  drug  with  the  two  solvents.  The 
resins  which  were  prepared  by  the  use  of  acetone  were  found  to  be 
soluble  in  alcohol,  and  the  reverse  of  this  was  true ;  those  which 
were  extracted  with  alcohol  were  soluble  in  acetone.    This  matter 
1 1895>  Journal  of  the  Franklin  Institute,  140,  383. 
2 1896,  Ztschr.  anal.  Chem.,  35,  10  and  422. 
