THE  AMERICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY 
ACIDIMETRIC  ESTIMATION  OF  VEGEIA 
ALKALOIDS.-  
OCTOBER,  i895.      f      OCT  1  1895 
A  STUDY  OF  INDICATORS. 
By  LAYMAN  F.  Kebler. 
That  this  method  seems  intangible  and  unsubstantial  to  some 
minds,  probably  supplies  the  firmest  grounds  for  hopeful  anticipa- 
tions concerning  its  future  perpetuity.  A  new  method  is  not  pro- 
pounded and  established  in  a  day,  springing  into  existence  com- 
pletely armed,  like  Minerva  from  the  head  of  Jupiter,  or  adorned  in 
all  its  beauty  like  Venus  from  the  foam  of  the  sea.  As  chemistry 
is  the  offspring  of  physics  or  the  science  of  molecules,  which  in 
turn  was  developed  from  mechanics  or  the  science  of  masses,  so 
titration  of  alkaloids  with  volumetric  acid  solutions  has  been  evolved 
from  the  study  of  the  basicity  of  alkaloids  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
behavior  of  alkaloids  with  indicators  on  the  other. 
The  method  appears  to  have  sunk  into  a  state  of  quiescence  from 
time  to  time,  for  as  early  as  1 846  M.  Schlbssing1  proposed  the  method 
and  applied  it  to  the  titration  of  nicotine  with  a  view  of  establish- 
ing its  equivalent;  using  sulphuric  acid  and  litmus  in  his  work. 
Sixteen  years  later  the  work  was  taken  up  by  Wittstein,-  who 
was  followed  by  F.  M.  Brandl,3  Liecke,4  Kosutany5  and  G.  Dragen- 
dorff.6  Up  to  this  time,  nicotine  and  coniine  were  the  only  alka- 
loids operated  on,  and  litmus  the  only  indicator  employed.  In  1879 
L.  van  Itallie7  extended  the  work  to  several  other  alkaloids,  using 
lacmoid  as  indicator.    A.  W.  Gerrarti8  a  few  years  later  employed 
1  Numerical  references  at  the  end  of  the  article. 
1499) 
