Aloc"JoberPi905rm'}       Pharmaceutical  Preparations.  467 
nized  as  semi-official  in  the  National  Formulary.  In  addition  to 
these,  there  are  prepared  in  every  pharmaceutical  laboratory  about 
300  unofficial  fluids,  which  constitute  part  of  the  stock  on  hand.  Large 
quantities  of  fluid  extracts  are  annually  manufactured  in  the  United 
States.  In  considering,  for  example,  cascara  sagrada,  whose  habitat 
is  on  the  coast,  and  for  the  supply  of  which  we  shall  always  have 
to  depend  upon  the  drug  gathered  in  this  and  adjoining  States, 
available  data  show  that  during  the  season  of  1904  there  were 
shipped  from  this  coast  to  the  different  parts  of  the  globe,  about 
1,500,000  pounds  of  cascara  bark,  the  greater  portion  of  which 
passed  into  the  hands  of  manufacturers  to  be  made  into  fluid  ex- 
tracts, such  as  the  U.S.P.,  the  bitterless  and  the  aromatic. 
Concerning  the  alkaloids,  it  may  be  said  that  the  extraction  of 
alkaloids  was  in  its  infancy  at  the  middle  of  the  century,  for  although 
quinine  had  been  on  the  market  several  decades,  its  use  was  limited, 
owing  to  the  high  price  it  commanded.  The  same  was  true  regard- 
ing morphine.  Chloroform,  ether,  guncotton  and  collodion  were  in 
use  before  the  Civil  War,  while  subsequently  glycerin  came  into  use 
as  a  solvent  in  manufacturing  pharmacy  and  made  possible  important 
advances  in  skin  medication,  resulting  in  the  introduction  of  the 
official  glycerites  into  the  Pharmacopoeia  of  1870.  Large  quantities 
of  glycerin  are  annually  employed  in  the  laboratory.  Its  use  as  an 
antiphlogistic  in  the  form  of  a  paste  is  of  recent  date  and  promises 
great  possibilities. 
The  demand  for  medical  supplies  during  the  Civil  War  acted  as  a 
stimulus  to  pharmaceutic  manufacture  and  resulted  in  the  establish- 
ment of  laboratories  on  a  large  scale.  In  consequence  of  the  active 
demand  for  pharmaceutical  products,  chemists  devised  new  methods 
for  the  extraction  and  purification  of  alkaloids,  the  manufacture  of 
chloroform,  ether,  nitrous  ether,  as  well  as  fluid  and  solid  extracts, 
resulting  in  the  cold-process  extraction  of  drugs  in  use  at  the  present 
day.  A  vast  number  of  new  materia  medica  products  were  exploited 
and  it  was  the  beginning  of  an  era  in  pharmaceutic  manufacture, 
which  for  its  scope,  the  number  and  character  of  products  manufac- 
tured, the  mechanical  devices  and  machinery  employed,  exceeds  all 
efforts  of  preceding  centuries. 
The  great  activity  in  the  field  of  manufacturing  pharmacy  no 
doubt  to  some  degree  justified  the  alarm  felt  by  some  ot  the  retail 
pharmacists,  who  maintained  that  the  manu  facturers  were  encroach- 
