Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  1 
February,  1906.  j 
Pharmaceutical  Meetings. 
99 
as  of  chlorides,  and  said  that  much  space  could  have  been  saved  by 
giving  these  in  some  one  place  and  referring  to  them  as  need  be 
under  the  chemicals.  He  expressed  the  opinion  that  some  of  the 
tests,  as,  for  example,  those  for  esters  under  essential  oils,  are  too 
complicated  for  practical  purposes. 
W.  L.  Cliffe  remarked  upon  the  subject  of  the  Pharmacopceia  as  a 
legal  standard,  and  said  that  the  law  governing  the  adulteration  and 
sophistication  of  drugs  in  Pennsylvania  is  in  the  hands  of  the  State 
Board  of  Pharmacy,  and  that  it  is  the  consensus  of  opinion  of  the 
members  of  the  Board  that  the  Pharmacopceia  is  the  best  available 
standard  for  their  purpose  without  framing  enactments  for  every 
article.  He  said  that  the  law  refers  to  the  latest  edition  of  the 
Pharmacopceia,  and,  as  administered,  has  never  wrought  any  hard- 
ships. He  said  that  in  the  case  of  litigation  referred  to  by  Dr.  LefT- 
mann  the  question  should  have  been  asked  as  to  whether  the  article 
in  question  was  sold  as  a  food  or  medicine,  the  Board  of  Pharmacy 
regarding  the  Pharmacopoeia  as  a  standard  for  drugs  only. 
Referring  to  the  subject  of  doses,  Prof.  C.  B.  Lowe  said  that  he 
considered  those  of  the  new  Pharmacopceia  to  be  rather  low,  that 
they  are  hardly  average  doses. 
Charles  H.  La  Wall  called  attention  to  a  sample  of  Bombay  mace 
which  he  said  had  no  spice  value;  and  also  to  some  dried  pistachio 
nuts  derived  from  Pistachia  veta  and  P.  lentiscus. 
Joseph  W.  England  exhibited  a  sample  of  powdered  Java  cinchona 
which  he  obtained  from  the  Powers-Weightman-Rosengarten  Com- 
pany, and  which  he  said  contained  from  10  to  12  per  cent,  of  alkaloid 
estimated  as  quinine  sulphate.  He  said  that  fully  95  per  cent,  of 
the  cinchona  bark  on  the  market  is  derived  from  the  cultivated 
cinchona  trees  in  Java,  and  that  the  cinchona  market  of  the  world 
has  changed  from  London  to  Amsterdam.  He  said  that  the  system 
of  mossing  the  bark  is  not  so  much  in  vogue  as  formerly,  the 
present  practice  being  to  cut  down  the  bark-yielding  trees  and  to 
plant  an  equivalent  number,  or  more,  of  selected  trees  each  year. 
By  this  method  it  is  possible  to  increase  the  content  of  quinine  in 
the  cultivated  barks,  and  it  is  not  unusual  for  the  yield  of  alkaloid 
to  be  equivalent  to  12  or  13  per  cent,  of  quinine  sulphate.  The 
mossing  system  was  done  away  with  because  the  increase  in  quinine 
was  not  permanent  and  because  the  trees  rotted  very  readily. 
