Am.  Jour.  Pliarm. 
April,  1906. 
Liquor  Cresolis  Compositus. 
169 
lars  filled  with  the  whole  list  of  preservatives  upon  his  table  and 
use  them  to  his  heart's  content,  but  the  day  I  think  has  passed 
when  the  food  manufacturer  may  with  impunity  place  in  his  goods 
the  very  substances  which  the  physician  can  use  only  after  years  of 
study  and  after  passing  an  examination,  and  which  the  druggist 
cannot  sell  without  a  physician's  prescription.  The  people  have 
rights  and  they  will  dare  assert  them,  and  the  greed  of  gold  and 
the  concupiscence  of  trade  must  give  way  to  the  broad  ethical  prin- 
ciple which  forbids  the  use  of  drugs  in  foods. 
"  Or  what  man  is  there  of  you,  whom  if  his  son  ask  bread,  will 
he  give  him  a  " — drug  ? 
LIQOUR  CRESOLIS  COMPOSITUS. 
By  Charges  H.  LaWau  and  E.  Fui^KRTon  Cook. 
The  use  of  crude  carbolic  acid  of  the  Pharmacopoeia  of  1890  in 
preference  to  the  purified  phenol  for  general  disinfecting  purposes 
was  not  based  alone  upon  economic  reasons,  but  was  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  so-called  crude  carbolic  acid  was  in  reality  not  carbolic 
acid  at  all,  but  that  it  consisted  mainly  of  homologues  having  more 
energetic  properties  than  the  phenol  itself,  namely  the  cresols. 
The  recognition  of  this  fact  was  quickly  taken  advantage  of  by 
manufacturers  of  proprietary  disinfectant  and  antiseptic  solutions. 
The  cresols  were  separated  by  fractionation,  the  three  homologues 
being  combined  in  the  one  liquid,  known  under  the  trade  name 
"  Cresol,"  and  as  the  physical  properties  were  dissimilar  from  phenol 
in  the  fact  that  cresol  is  almost  insoluble  in  water,  preparations  were 
devised  to  overcome  this  difficulty  by  combining  the  cresol  with 
some  form  of  soap,  which  combination  was  found  to  be  the  most 
advantageous  method  of  using  it. 
The  widespread  popular  use  of  some  of  these  preparations  led  the 
Revision  Committee  of  the  Eighth  Revision  of  the  U.  S.  P.  to  include 
cresol  in  the  list  of  medicinal  substances,  and  to  give  a  formula  for 
a  soluble  preparation  of  the  same. 
Several  complaints  having  reached  the  ears  of  the  authors  of  this 
paper,  both  as  to  the  quality  of  the  commercial  cresol  on  the  mar. 
ket  and  the  practicability  of  the  working  process  for  the  compound 
solution,  it  was  considered  worthy  of  a  little  experimentation  as  to 
the  facts  in  the  case. 
