382  EDITORIAL. 
communications  may  be  sent,  with  samples,  if  possible,  to  either  member  of 
the  Committee,  who  will  pay  the  expense  of  such  transmission  if  required. 
C.  B.  Guthrie,  88  John  St.,  N.  Y. 
C.  T.  Carney,  Boston. 
Wm.  Fiske,  Cleveland,  Ohio. 
A.  B.  Taylor,  Philadelphia. 
A.  P.  Sharpe,  Baltimore. 
Fluid  Extracts. — Occasionally,  in  our  capacity  as  Editor,  we  are  the 
recipient  of  specimens  of  pharmaceutical  preparations,  such  as  extracts, 
fluid  extracts,  etc.,  with  a  view  to  giviDg  an  expression  in  regard  to  their 
merits.  It  is  very  difficult  to  give  an  opinion  on  such  matters,  worth  any- 
thing to  the  consumer,  unless  an  amount  of  investigation  is  entered  into 
that  is  inconvenient  to  an  Editor,  and  often  difficult  to  accomplish  where 
the  opinion  is  based,  as  it  should  be,  on  therapeutic  observations  by  com- 
petent physicians.  A  proximate  principle,  as  an  article  of  manufacture, 
if  pure,  may  be  pronounced  on  by  its  merely  chemical  characters  by  a  com- 
petent chemical  examiner,  it  being  assumed  that  the  therapeutist  has  pre- 
viously decided  its  merit  in  the  scale  of  medicines.  In  galenical  preparations, 
where  but  one  formula  exists,  as  regards  proportional  strength  and  modus 
operandi,  a  good  pharmaceutist  can  generally  give  an  opinion  of  value, 
based  on  sensible  properties  by  comparison  ;  but  where  each  manufacturer 
has  a  process  and  often  a  proportion  of  his  own,  opinions  become  little 
more  than  guesses  with  a  very  doubtful  degree  of  certainty.  Besides,  one 
uses  sugar,  another  alcohol,  and  a  third  both,  as  the  preservative  agents, 
thus  modifying  the  sensible  properties  of  the  preparations,  and  more  or 
less  masking  the  active  principles. 
It  seems  now  pretty  well  established  that  fluid  extracts,  as  a  class,  meet 
the  favorable  opinion  of  physicians,  and  it  becomes  a  matter  of  grave  im- 
portance to  the  medical  profession  that  some  efficient  action  be  taken  by 
the  pharmaceutists  of  the  United  States  to  adopt  a  set  of  formulae, — that  is 
one  for  each  class, — which  shall  govern  the  manufacturer,  whether  he  be 
apothecary,  druggist,  or  manufacturing  pharmaceutist,  as  regards  the  pro- 
portion of  the  drug  and  the  menstrua  to  be  used  in  extraction  and  the 
agent  for  their  preservation.  With  these  points  established,  it  is  clear,  that 
any  marked  differences  in  these  preparations  could  be  readily  detected,  and 
these  differences  would  be  attributed  to  inferiority  of  material  or  unskilful 
manipulation.  These  remarks  have  been  called  forth  by  the  reception  of 
some  samples  of  fluid  extracts  from  Henry  Thayer  &  Co.,  of  Cambridge, 
Massachusetts,  accompanied  by  a  circular,  a  price  current,  and  a  list  of 
formulae  for  making  derivative  preparations. 
On  a  former  occasion  (Jan.,  1856,)  we  alluded  to  the  fact  that  the 
fluid  extracts  of  this  House  were  prepared  with  alcohol  in  lieu  of  sugar, 
"but  in  saying  so  we  had  no  intention  of  conveying  the  idea  that  these  gen- 
tlemen appear  to  have  drawn  from  our  remarks,  as  exhibited  in  the  following 
