A frican  Balsam  of  Copaiba. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\       April,  1905. 
The  British  Pharmacopoeia  of  1898  gives  a  test  to  exclude  it  from 
use  with  the  other  copaibas.  "  The  volatile  oil  should  rotate  the  plane 
of  a  ray  of  polarized  light  from  280  to  380  to  the  left  (absence  of 
African  copaiba)."  The  volatile  oil  of  African  copaiba,  as  is  well 
known,  rotates  to  the  right ;  so  in  defining  the  degree  of  rotation  it 
was  intended  to  prevent  both  the  substitution  of  this  article  and  its 
admixture.  The  degree  of  rotation  (280  to  380)  demanded  in  the 
above  test  is  too  high  to  include  many  genuine  specimens,  accord- 
ing to  figures  given  by  many  writers  and  by  our  own  experience ; 
therefore,  the  degree  of  rotation  must  of  necessity  be  disregarded, 
rendering  the  test  only  partially  reliable.  That  portion  of  the  test 
demanding  that  the  ray  be  rotated  to  the  left  is  of  value,  but  would 
admit  the  admixture  of  a  percentage  of  African  copaiba  not  suffi- 
cient to  deviate  the  ray  from  left  to  right,  but  only  just  enough  to 
modify  the  extent  of  its  deviation. 
A  sample  of  a  lot  of  Central  American  copaiba  of  very  excellent 
quality,  refined  by  the  company  with  which  I  am  connected,  gave  a 
rotation  of  —  iy°  i6r.  In  other  samples  we  have  met  as  low  as 
—  50.  Thus  it  would  seem  impossible  to  define  the  degree  of  rota- 
tion, and  therefore  impossible  to  prevent  in  this  way  the  addition  oi 
African  copaiba. 
The  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia,  either  intentionally  or  otherwise,  con- 
tains two  tests  which  operate  against  its  use — the  ammonia  test,  and 
the  statement  that  copaiba  must  not  be  fluorescent.  The  ammonia 
test  is  unscientific  in  that  its  action  is  not  understood.  Pure  Para 
balsam  copaiba  does  not  answer  this  test ;  and  yet  we  do  not  say 
that  it  is  therefore  of  less  value  medicinally.  If  African  or  Bahia 
balsams  do  not  answer  this  test,  should  they  on  that  account  be 
rejected  ?  Obviously,  no ;  since  their  insolubility  may  be  due  to 
some  perfectly  natural  constituent  not  contained  in  "  Copaiba  Langs- 
dorffii,"  but  present  in  some  of  the  "other  species  of  copaiba" 
admitted  by  the  Pharmacopoeia.  The  statement  that  copaiba  should 
not  be  fluorescent  should  be  changed  to  one  of  degree  of  fluores- 
cence, since  all  the  copaibas  that  have  come  under  our  inspection 
are,  at  least,  slightly  fluorescent. 
That  African  copaiba  finds  its  way  into  our  market  for  illegiti- 
mate use  is  amply  demonstrated  by  the  statement  of  London  brokers 
that  enormous  quantities  have  been  exported  from  London  to  New 
York.    It  is  not  thereafter  sold  under  its  true  name,  and  therefore 
