Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  I 
December,  1906.  I 
United  States  Army  Laboratory. 
573 
subside,  became  more  violent  from  -moment  to  moment,  the  mass 
began  to  froth,  and  continued  to  froth.  A  portion  was  removed  into 
another  vessel;  it  still  frothed,  and  after  filling  several  vessels  (with 
bubbling  froth),  it  finally  subsided  to  form  a  dark  brown  unctuous 
mass,  from  which  much  of  the  mercury  had  separated  in  a  metallic 
state — in  short,  a  ruined  ointment.  I  had  learned  my  lesson,  that 
mass  has  much  to  do  with  reaction ;  that  a  temperature  suitable  for 
small  quantities  had  to  be  controlled  by  proper  means  when  large 
quantities  were  taken  in  operation.  It  was  so  with  gun  cotton,  but 
it  manifested  itself  differently.  It  was  found  that  after  the  cotton 
had  been  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  acid  mixture,  the  conversion 
into  soluble  gun  cotton  was  far  more  rapid  than  was  indicated  by 
the  pharmacopceial  directions — this  being  doubtless  due  to  the  tem- 
perature generated  during  the  reaction.  If  this  action  was  per- 
mitted to  continue,  the  soluble  cotton  became  gradually  converted 
into  the  less  soluble  and  more  explosive  variety  and,  therefore,  it 
was  necessary  to  intercept  the  process  at  a  point  when  conversion 
into  soluble  gun  cotton  was  complete.  The  solution  of  this  problem 
was  quite  simple.  It  consisted  in  removing  a  small  pledget  of  the 
cotton  from  time  to  time,  washing  it  quickly  in  water,  immersing  it 
twice  in  fresh  portions  of  alcohol,  expressing,  and  immediately  shak- 
ing it  in  a  test  tube  with  a  mixture  of  one  volume  of  alcohol  and 
three  of  ether.  So  long  as  the  sample  did  not  dissolve  in  this  mix- 
ture, the  action  of  the  acid  on  the  cotton  was  allowed  to  continue  ; 
but  as  soon  as  it  dissolved  perfectly  and  quickly  in  the  ether-alcohol 
mixture,  the  reaction  was  intercepted  by  throwing  the  acid  mass 
into  a  large  quantity  of  water,  then  washing  and  treating  it  in  the 
usual  manner. 
In  the  foregoing  I  have  about  outlined  the  work  in  which  I  was 
directly  concerned.  In  order  to  round  up,  however,  it  may  be  of 
interest  to  mention  that  the  entire  second  and  third  floors  of  the 
main  building  were  occupied  almost  exclusively  for  bottling,  label- 
ing and  wrapping  the  medicaments  manufactured  in  the  different 
departments  ;  in  the  manufacture  of  roller  bandages,  the  spreading 
of  isinglass  plaster,  the  rolling  out  of  pills,  and  like  operations,  by  a 
force  of  probably  150  women  and  girls,  under  the  superintendence 
of  Miss  Maggie  Davis.  From  here  they  were  turned  into  the  pack- 
ing rooms,  where  they  were  boxed,  transferred  to  the  warehouse — 
