ON  SOME  PHARMACEUTICAL  PREPARATIONS. 
tire  apparatus  costs,  when  complete,  from  600  to  650  dollars.  It 
is  not  patented,  and  may  be  seen  at  any  time  at  the  Louisville 
Chemical  Works  of  T.  E.  Jenkins  &  Co. 
Louisville,  Kentucky,  December  1857. 
REMARKS  ON  SOME  PHARMACEUTICAL  PREPARATIONS. 
By  John  M.  Maisch. 
In  the  pharmaceutical  laboratory  the  displacement  apparatus 
is  now  in  constant  use  for  the  exhaustion  of  crude  drugs,  in 
preference  to  the  old  fashioned  way  of  macerating  them  for  a 
certain  length  of  time,  expressing  and  obtaining  the  liquor  clear 
by  filtration.  It  is  the  convenience  of  combining  all  these 
operations  into  one,  the  gain  of  time  and  the  cleanliness  of  this 
manipulation,  that  have  won  for  it  the  well  merited  favor  of  the 
pharmaceutist.  Some  few  articles  are  still  considered  unfit  for 
this  process ;  on  a  few  of  them  I  offer  the  following  remarks. 
Tinctures  of  Opium. — Of  the  tinctures  containing  opium, 
paregoric  is  most  conveniently  made  by  the  process  of  macera- 
tion, inasmuch  as  all  the  ingredients  are  dissolved  by  the 
menstruum,  except  the  opium,  the  quantity  of  which  is  so  small 
as  not  to  retard  filtration  or  occasion  any  loss  by  it.  It  is  dif- 
ferent with  the  other  tinctures  of  opium,  for  which  an  expression 
of  the  dregs  previous  to  filtering  is  directed  by  the  Pharma- 
copoeia. Opium,  on  account  of  its  gummy  nature,  when  put  in  a 
percolator,  is  apt  to  pack  so  tightly  and  to  clog  the  apertures  of 
the  lower  end  of  the  apparatus,  as  to  refuse  to  let  any  liquid  pass 
at  all.  This  tendency  must  be  obviated  if  the  tinctures  of  opium 
are  to  be  made  by  displacement.  After  several  failures  in  this 
attempt  I  have  come  to  the  following  arrangement,  which  answers 
admirably  for  the  designed  purpose. 
The  lower  orifice  of  a  glass  percolator  is  well  corked,  a  cotton 
plug  is  inserted  into  the  neck,  over  which  a  porcelain  diaphragm 
is  placed  of  about  the  diameter  of  the  percolator  ;  the  diaphragm 
is  then  covered  with  a  layer  of  washed  sand,  to  the  thickness  of 
\  or  \  inch,  when  the  percolator  is  ready  to  receive  the  opium. 
For  making  two  gallons  of  laudanum  I  pour  upon  20  oz.  Troy  of 
dry  opium  1  quart  of  warm  water,  work  it  well  occasionally  with 
