Am.  Jour.  Pharin. 
January,  1895. 
Diluted  Hydrobromic  Acid. 
of  bornyl  acetate,  which,  according  to  their  statement,  is  present  in 
almost  all  of  them.  As  scon  as  more  material  can  be  obtained  the 
investigation  will  be  continued,  since  the  substance  that  crystallized 
from  the  mother  liquid  of  the  pinene  nitroso  -chloride  deserves  further 
attention. 
Pharmaceutical  Laboratory,  University  of  Wjdfa>NgII&         V-  * 
Diluted  hydrobromic  acid  is  one  of  the  articles  of  the  Pharma- 
copoeia for  which  there  is  no  official  process  of  manufacture, 
although  the  Pharmacopoeia  fixes  the  standard  of  purity  in  a  simi- 
lar manner  to  the  other  acids.  Notwithstanding  the  fact  that 
diluted  hydrobromic  acid  is  not  an  article  of  everyday  occurrence  in 
prescriptions,  this  standard  of  purity  should  be  as  rigorously  upheld 
as  that  of  the  more  frequently  occurring  acids. 
Some  time  ago  the  writer  of  this  article  had  occasion  to  exam- 
ine a  sample  of  diluted  hydrobromic  acid,  which  was  known 
to  have  been  made  by  Fothergill's  process.  The  results  of  the 
examination  were  so  widely  at  variance  with  the  requirements  of 
the  Pharmacopoeia  that  other  samples  were  procured  from  various 
sources  in  order  to  ascertain  the  purity  of  the  article  as  commonly 
found  in  the  market. 
Six  samples  have  been  carefully  examined,  all  but  one  of  which 
were  from  wholesale  and  manufacturing  houses  in  Philadelphia. 
Not  one  of  the  samples  tested  complied  with  all  of  the  require- 
ments of  the  Pharmacopoeia,  and  while  one  or  two  approximated  a 
state  of  purity,  the  remaining  specimens  were  very  impure,  and 
showed  evidence  of  very  careless  or  faulty  methods  of  manufacture. 
Free  sulphuric  acid  was  present  in  several  of  the  samples  (Nos. 
3  and  6),  an  inexcusable  contamination,  and  all  of  them  indicated  a 
higher  percentage  of  absolute  hydrobromic  acid  than  is  allowed  by 
the  Pharmacopoeia. 
DILUTED  HYDROBROMIC 
By  Chas.  H.  LaWau,  Ph.G. 
