408 
Criticisms  of  the  U.S. P. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\  September,  1906. 
for  it  is  only  by  means  of  them  that  uniformity  of  strength  in  phar- 
maceuticals can  be  obtained.  Heretofore  there  has  been  no  reason 
why  a  fluid  extract  of  jaborandi,  for  example,  of  one  manufacture, 
should  not  contain  four  or  six  times  as  much  pilocarpine  as  that  of 
another.  Again,  it  is  only  by  determining  the  amount  of  menthol 
or  santalol  present  in  oil  of  peppermint  and  oil  of  sandalwood  that 
the  purity  of  such  oils  can  be  established,  because  the  methods  of 
adulteration  and  sophistication  are  to-day  so  refined  that  oil  of  pep- 
permint, for  example,  can  be  dementholized  and  still  meet  practically 
all  of  the  physical  requirements  of  a  pure  oil.  The  methods  of  assay 
are  so  simple  that  they  can  be  carried  out  without  any  difficulty  by 
any  retail  druggist  who  has  had  the  chemical  training  which  most  col- 
leges of  pharmacy  claim  to  give.  It  is  lamentable  that  the  retail 
druggist  does  not  make  more  use  of  his  pharmaceutical- chemical 
training  than  he  does.  Incidentally  it  may  be  remarked  that  the 
assays  of  the  new  Pharmacopoeia  should  find  a  place  for  treatment 
in  the  curriculum  of  every  college  of  pharmacy,  and  familiarity  with 
them  should  be  demanded  of  all  candidates  by  boards  of  pharmacy. 
What  moral  right  has  a  man  to  dispense  preparations  whose  strength 
he  is  unable  to  determine  ?  (Charles  E.  Caspari,  in  Meyer  Brothers' 
Druggist,  1905,  p.  248.) 
ASSAY  OF  ACONITE  SAID  TO  BE  FAULTY. 
Aconite  is  one  of  the  instances  where  the  Committee  on  Revis- 
ion has  carried  the  instructions  to  include  assay  processes,  where 
possible,  to  an  extreme.  In  the  first  place,  we  doubt  whether 
aconite  root  is  obtainable  commercially  that  will  yield  0-5  per  cent, 
of  aconitine  melting  at  195 0  C.  The  highest  average  yield  of  total 
alkaloid  is  I  per  cent.,  reported  by  Keller  from  dry  German  root, 
but  his  results  have  not  been  confirmed  by  other  investigators.  An 
average  yield  of  total  alkaloid  from  good  commercial  root  is  0  5  per 
cent.,  and  quite  a  percentage  of  this  is  certainly  not  aconitine. 
Moreover,  the  official  process  of  assay  will  not  extract  aconitine 
alone ;  other  alkaloidal  substances  will  contaminate  the  final  resi- 
due. If  the  committee  had  fixed  the  strength  at  0-5  per  cent,  of 
total  alkaloids,  little  criticism  would  have  been  aroused.  In  any 
event  much  more  research  is  needed  before  a  satisfactory  assay  of 
aconite  is  possible.  No  assay  is  worth  anything  that  does  not  deter- 
mine the  aconitine.    {Drug  Topics,  1905,  page  210.) 
