Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
September,  1913.  > 
An  Assay  for  Sanguinaria. 
395 
fied,  because  it  is  not  the  time  at  which  the  commercial  drug  is 
collected,  nor  is  it  the  time  of  greatest  alkaloidal  content. 
Assay  of  Commercial  Drug. 
Sanguinaria  No.  i  3.17  per  cent,  total  mixed  alkaloids. 
Sanguinaria  No.  2  4.05  per  cent,  total  mixed  alkaloids. 
Sanguinaria  No.  3  3.12  per  cent,  total  mixed  alkaloids. 
Assay  of  Collected  Samples  of  Sanguinaria. 
Per  cent,  total  alkaloids         Per  cent,  loss  on  air- 
Time  of  collection,  after  air-drying.  drying  (moisture). 
5/I2/I2  6.50.  82.51 
5/23/12  5-55 •••  .....80.75 
6/7/12  4.60  78.75 
6/21/12  3.40  .74.56 
7/6/12  3.00  75.05 
7/19/12  3-95  73.26 
.    8/2/12    3-90    72.31 
8/29/12  "   .3.95  .  70.28 
AN  ASSAY  FOR  SANGUINARIA.1 
By  Victor  O.  Homerberg,  P.D.,  and  George  M.  Beringer,  Jr.,  P.D.2 
Often,  the  mind  of  human  science  travels  in  a  mental  maze, 
taking  its  turns  by  guess  or  luck,  blindly  ignoring  the  pointing 
finger  on  nature's  sign-post.  To  most,  if  not  all,  of  her  riddles 
nature  herself  furnishes  the  key.  The  assay  of  Sanguinaria  Cana- 
densis, and  the  problems  involved  in  the  search  for  that  assay, 
furnish  striking  proofs  of  these  two  propositions.  Few  alkaloidal 
assays  present  so  many  difficulties. 
The  strong  colors  of  the  salts  of  the  principal  alkaloids  preclude 
the  use  of  any  volumetric  process,  as  no  indicator  and  no  end  reac- 
tion would  be  available  in  their  presence.  In  the  separation  of  the 
alkaloids  from  the  drug,  the  soluble  alkalies — Soda,  Potash  and 
Ammonia — precipitate  the  coloring  matter  along  with  the  alkaloids, 
which  coloring  matter  later  forms  troublesome  emulsions  with  the 
1  Read  at  the  Annual  Meeting  of  the  New  Jersey  Pharmaceutical  Associa- 
tion, June,  1913. 
2  The  work  embodied  in  this  paper  was  carried  out  by  Victor  O.  Homer- 
berg  and  presented  by  him  in  a  thesis,  for  his  degree,  before  the  Philadelphia 
College  of  Pharmacy.  His  associate  has  merely  rewritten  this  portion  for 
presentation  to  this  Association. — G.  M.  B.,  Jr. 
