Am.  Jour.  Ptaarm.  \ 
October.  1905.  J 
Pharmaceutical  Preparations. 
465 
menstruum  the  apparatus  is  closed  with  a  good  cork.  The  tube  can 
now  be  shaken  any  length  of  time  without  the  plug  becoming 
dislodged. 
s  After  shaking  the  tube  the  prescribed  length  of  time  it  is  set 
aside  with  the  stop  cock  downwards  till  the  drug  has  well  settled 
and  the  percolation  then  finished  as  with  an  ordinary  percolator. 
The  shaking  of  the  tube  should  always  be  done  in  the  plane  of  it, 
as  violent  side  motions  are  liable  to  throw  out  the  stopper  of  the 
stop-cock  unless  it  be  tied  down. 
Any  maker  of  chemical  glassware  when  given  the  description  of 
this  percolator  tube  can  make  it  in  a  few  minutes  at  a  very  insignifi- 
cant cost  and  in  any  desirable  size. 
The  dimensions  here  given  are  suitable  for  10  grams  of  drugs. 
THE  MANUFACTURE  OF  PHARMACEUTICAL  PREPARA- 
TIONS.1 
By  A.  C.  Zeig,  Ph.C. 
The  preparing  of  medicaments  for  healing  the  sick  and  the 
wounded,  no  doubt  antedates  pharmacy  as  a  profession  by  many 
centuries.  Its  evolution  is  the  evolution  of  pharmacy  itself  through 
many  centuries  of  struggle  for  recognition  as  a  profession,  the  sole 
specialty  of  which  was  to  be  the  preparing  and  dispensing  of  medi- 
cine in  accordance  with  the  will  of  the  physician. 
The  adoption  of  pharmacopoeias  and  standard  formulae  centuries 
ago,  no  doubt,  was  a  great  aid  to  the  apothecary  of  that  time,  and 
history  records  the  fact  that  a  pharmacopoeia  was  adopted  as  the 
official  standard  as  early  as  a.d  1150,  at  Salerno,  in  the  Kingdom 
of  Naples,  Italy,  and  was  recognized  as  the  official  standard  through- 
out Europe  a  long  time  after.  Every  apothecary  was  compelled, 
under  oath,  to  manufacture  all  the  medicaments  according  to  the 
official  pharmacopoeia. 
The  first  work  corresponding  to  the  modern  idea  of  a  pharma- 
copoeia, which  likewise  received  legal  sanction  in  Europe,  was  the 
work  of  one  Valerius  Cordus,  at  Nuremberg,  Germany,  published 
about  1546.  All  druggists  were  directed  to  prepare  their  medicines 
according  to  the  directions  therein  laid  down. 
1  Read  at  the  Lewis  and  Clark  Pharmaceutical  Congress,  Portland,  Ore., 
July,  1905. 
