^AiS™;S?r*}  Editorial.  381 
Baltimore,  July  12th,  1871. 
Editor  of  Am.  Jour.  Pharmacy. 
Dear  Sir, — In  the  last  number  (July)  of  your  valuable  journal,  I  notice  a 
very  commendable  article  written  upon  "  Modern  Elixirs."  I  have  for  a  long- 
time entertained  the  same  views  as  expressed  by  you  concerning  those  prepa- 
rations. They  have  at  last  become  a  "  nuisance  "  to  the  dispensing  pharma- 
cist. More  reasons  than  one  might  be  adduced  to  prove  them  such.  I,  for 
one,  have  never  made  but  the  one  "  Elix.  Valerianate  Ammonia,"  because  I 
have  felt  that  the  matter  should  be  controlled  and  checked  by  our  "Colleges  of 
Pharmacy,"  and  not  encouraged  by  me.  If  we  must  have  the  various  Elixirs, 
it  seems  as  though  there  might  be  contributions  of  formulas  from  individuals 
connected  with  our  various  Colleges  of  Pharmacy  throughout  our  country,  and 
presented  at  the  meeting  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association  ;  and 
from  the  number  received  let  there  be  selected  (by  a  Commission  appointed 
for  the  purpose)  the  most  satisfactory  rormiilas,  and  recommend  them  to  be 
adopted  as  ofBcinal  preparations,  so  that  upon  a  revision  of  our  national  Phar- 
macopoeia they  could  be  inserted  as  such.  I  have  conversed  with  several  of 
our  leading  pharmacists  and  physicians,  and  they  have  expressed  their  dissatis- 
faction with  the  present  confused  condition  of  matters  as  brought  about  by  the 
introduction  of  so  many  Elixirs,  and  by  so  many  different  makers. 
I  do  not  write  this  with  the  expectation  of  iniSuencing  the  Elixir  Market  in 
any  manner,  but  merely  to  inform  you  that  the  same  feeling  exists  in  our  city 
concerning  those  preparations  that  seems  to  exist  elsewhere. 
Hoping  that  you  will  continue  to  agitate  the  subject  until  the  abuses  are 
checked,  I  remain, 
Most  respectfully,  yours, 
E.  Walton  Russell. 
Impure  Chloral  Hydrate. — During  the  past  winter  we  have  repeatedly 
taken  occasion  to  lay  before  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy  the  fact 
that  chloral  hydrate  in  the  form  of  cakes  of  a  crystalline  structure  is  (according 
to  our  experience)  always  impure,  inasmuch  as  it  contains  or  soon  generates 
notable  quantities  of  hydrochloric  acid  gas  and  probably  other  products  of  de- 
composition. This  is  often  not  noticed  unless  the  decomposition  has  made 
considerable  headway.  The  paper  of  Mr.  Boehme,  published  in  the  present 
number,  furnishes  another  example  of  this  decomposition. 
Such  impure  chloral  hydrate  can  be  readily  purified  by  crystallization  from 
warm  bisulphide  of  carbon.  It  then  retains  usually  a  trace  of  the  solvent,  which, 
however,  rapidly  evaporates  on  trituration  in  a  mortar.  Crystallized  chloral 
hydrate  is,  and  has  been  for  months,  an  article  of  commerce  ;  the  commercial 
must  have  been  crystallized  from  another  menstruum,  the  crystals  differing  in 
shape  and  appearance  from  those  obtained  from  the  bisulphide. 
Crystallized  pure  chloral  hydrate  does  not  attract  moisture  from  the  atmos- 
phere, but  evaporates  completely,  though  slowly,  at  the  ordinary  temperature, 
without  becoming  moist;  on  being  approached  with  a  glass  rod  dipped  in  am- 
monia, white/umes  are  not  produced.  These  two  simple  tests  readily  distinguish 
it  from  the  cake  chloral  hydrate. 
