Am.  Jour. Ph arm. ) 
August,  1898.  J 
The  Chemistry  of  Aloes. 
399 
pound  ;  and,  as  we  also  know,  the  pharmacist  nearly  always  calls  for 
and  uses  the  former,  thinking  the  latter  a  cheap,  malodorous  sub- 
stitute. If  any  aloes  can  be  called  not  malodorous,  and  if  com- 
parisons of  malodor  can  be  made  by  skilled  pharmaceutical  olfac- 
tory nerves,  perhaps  it  is  safe  to  say  that  Curacoa  aloes  is  the 
stronger  in  odor,  although  not  as  unpleasant  as  Cape  aloes. 
Whether  or  not  the  famous  saffron-like  qualities  of  Socotrine  aloes 
justify  us  in  investing  22  cents  a  pound  for  the  saffron  aloes  is,  how- 
ever, another  question,  and  I  would  like  to  ask  the  many  skilled 
pharmacists  seated  before  me  if  they  always  prefer  the  saffron- 
flavored  aloes  because  of  its  saffron  or  because  it  is  official.  If  it 
could  be  shown  that  Curacoa  aloes  or  any  other  aloes  is  as0 efficient 
as  its  saffron-flavored  sister,  would  they  still  st!and  by  the  U.S.P. 
and  pay  22  cents  tribute  to  the  latter  or  to  the  saffron  flavor  ?  I 
certainly  would  not.  Drugs  have  been  but  little  studied,  and  our 
standards  for  the  same  are  necessarily  vague  and  indefinite.  When, 
however,  science  has  taken  a  drug  in  hand  and  given  us  standards, 
and  thereby  upset  our  former  macroscopical  and  necessarily  superfi- 
cial criteria  as  to  their  relative  value,  should  we  not  accept  the  results 
of  her  revelations  and  adopt  the  benefits  thereof  ?  We  know  that  aloin 
is  one  of  the  active  principles  of  aloes,  and  if  not  the  only  one,  as  I 
shall  show,  still  the  main  one,  and  a  principle  that  we  all  know  per- 
fectly well  is  uniformly  efficient  and  gives  us  all  the  results  of  the 
drug.  If  we  can  show  that  Curacoa  aloes  contains  as  much  and 
frequently  more  aloin  than  Socotrine  aloes,  are  we  not  reasonably 
certain  that  the  one  is  as  efficient  and  valuable  as  the  other,  for  cer- 
tainly the  odor  of  the  aloes  has  no  influence  on  the  lower  bowel  ?  I 
have  made  comparative  assays  of  Socotrine,  Curacoa  and  Cape  aloes, 
and  have  found  that  they  contain  approximately  the  following  rela- 
tive amounts  of  aloin  :  (M.  P.,  1030  C.)  Socotrine  aloes,  soft  in 
monkey  skins,  7^  per  cent,  average  of  3  assays.  (M.  P.,  uo°  C.) 
Curacoa  aloes,  hard  and  livery  and  of  a  light  chocolate  color,  18  5 
per  cent,  in  3  assays.  (M.  P.,  1070  C.)  Cape  aloes,  hard,  glassy  and 
black  in  color,  4^  per  cent,  average  3  assays.  Inasmuch  as  practi- 
cally all  the  aloin  in  this  country  is  made  from  Curacoa  aloes  as  it 
I  is  in  England  from  Barbadoes  aloes,  and  we  have  all  found  that  it 
is  usually  efficacious  and  produces  the  desired  effects,  we  cannot 
but  conclude  in  the  face  of  the  above  assays  that  no  reason  exists, 
as  far  as  we  know,  why  we  should  not  use  Curacoa  aloes  to  the 
