$06  Powdered  Vegetable  Drugs.         {A  October ^iK'^ 
QUALITATIVE  EXAMINATION  OF  POWDERED  VEGE- 
TABLE DRUGS.1 
By  Henry  Kraemer. 
In  this  communication  is  embodied  the  principles  of  a  scheme  for 
the  determination  of  unknown  powders.  While  the  paper  has  pri- 
marily to  do  with  the  consideration  of  official  vegetable  drugs,  still 
it  has  been  found  necessary  to  incorporate  with  it  also  the  impor- 
tant non-official  vegetable  drugs  and  food  products,  as  well  as  the  pul- 
veres  (composed  of  inorganic  and  vegetable  substances),  some  of 
the  compound  powders  for  making  various  preparations,  and  all  of 
the  principal  plant  constituents ,  as  opium,  guaiac  resin,  etc.  The 
proximate  principles  of  plants,  other  than  starch,  have  been  omit- 
ted, owing  to  the  fact  that  they  require  a  somewhat  different  treat- 
ment. Somewhere  in  the  neighborhood  of  300  powders  are  consid- 
ered. The  whole  scheme  is  but  tentative,  and  will  doubtless  require 
some  changing,  but  gives  us  a  basis  for  subsequent  work,  at  least. 
It  has  not  been  possible,  up  to  the  present  time,  owing  to  the  pres- 
sure of  duties,  to  finish  the  drawings  for  publication  of  the  points 
considered,  but  even  without  these,  those  who  are  familiar  with  the 
microscopical  characteristics  of  crude  drugs  and  the  general  princi- 
ples of  chemical  analysis  will  find  little  or  no  difficulty  in  the  utili- 
zation of  the  same.  The  drugs  under  consideration  are  divided,  ac- 
cording to  the  varying  shades  of  color,  into  seven  classes : 
I.  Color,  some  shade  of  light  green  to  gray. 
II.  Color,  nearly  white. 
III.  Color,  some  shade  of  yellow. 
IV.  Color,  varying  from  some  shade  of  tan  or  ecru  to  dark  brown?- 
or  even  dark  blue  or  black.  • 
V.  Color,  some  shade  of  red. 
VI.  Powders  that  vary  in  fineness  from  Nos.  20  to  30  or  less,  and 
are  with  difficulty  examined  by  means  of  the  microscope  without 
further  treatment,  as  sectioning,  etc. 
VII.  Drugs  that  do  not  occur  in  the  powdered  condition. 
The  author  was  some  time  in  coming  to  the  conclusion  that  pow- 
dered drugs  could  be  arranged  along  color  lines  before  taking  them 
up  scientifically  for  identification.  It  is  true  it  is  necessary  to 
arrange  samples  of  the  powders  in  convenient  vials  and  mount  on 
white  cardboard  to  appreciate  the  ground  for  the  classification 
1  Given  in  abstract  at  the  Baltimore  meeting  of  the  A.  Ph. A. 
