Am.  Jour.  Pharm 
Oct.,  1883. 
I        Petrolatum  in  the  Officinal  Ointments.  487 
permitted  to  settle,  and  then  decanted.  This  decanted  liquid  is  the 
finished  fluid  extract. 
The  specimen  which  we  now  exhibit  was  prepared  after  this  proces-. 
In  presenting  this  paper  we  trust  that  we  will  not  \)Q  considered  as 
participants  in  the  malt  controversy  which  has  more  or  less  agitated 
the  pharmacists  of  some  sections  of  our  country  during  the  past  year. 
The  substances  offered  as  far  as  we  know  under  the  name  of  malt 
extracts,  and  which  our  Pharmacopoeia  recognizes  as  a  malt  extract, 
are  entirely  different  in  appearance  from  the  preparation  to  which 
we  refer.  Our  object  is  simply  to  bring  before  the  Association  a  process 
which  can  be  used  by  pharmacists  with  limited  conveniences.  Any 
process  embodying  the  application  of  heat  which  we  have  investigated 
tends,  according  to  our  late  experiments,  to  destroy  the  diastase,  and 
when,  by  evaporation  at  a  gentle  heat,  the  viscid-like  extract  is 
obtained,  it  will  generally  be  found  that,  as  far  as  the  diastase  is 
concerned,  it  is  in  less  amount,  bulk  for  bulk,  than  in  the  liquid 
before  evaporation,  even  if  it  be  not  altogether  wanting.  Hence  it 
is  that  we  believe  the  simple  proces  of  percolation  is  best  adapted  to 
the  wants  of  pharmacists  generally,  and  we  think  such  should  be  the 
officinal  process  for  making  malt  extract. 
PETROLATUM  IN  THE  OFFICINAL  OINTMENTS. 
By  Joseph  P.  Remington. 
Read  at  the  Sixth  Session  of  the  Thii'ty-first  Annual  Meeting  of  the  Amei'i- 
can  PharmaGeutical  Association. 
Petrolatum,  the  new  officinal  ointment  base,  was  probably  the  sub- 
ject of  more  animated  discussion  in  the  long  series  of  debates  occurring 
in  the  last  Committee  of  Revision  and  Publication  of  the  Pharmaco- 
poeia, than  any  other  preparation.  The  fact  that  it  was  a  mixture, 
being  composed  of  hydrocarbons,  of  the  paraffin  and  olefin  series  prob- 
ably ranging  from  C^gHg^  to  CggHgg  and  from  Cifiz2  ^^7^^545  ^^^^ 
that  its  physical  properties  depended  to  a  considerable  extent  upon  the 
relative  proportion  of  olefin  constituents,  contributed  to  the  necessity 
for  thorough  study  and  discussion  ;  but  the  need  that  was  recognized 
for  a  non-oxidizable  substitute  for  lard,  and  the  conviction  that  the 
cosmolines,  vaselines,  deodorolines,  saxolines,  petrolines,  etc.,  in  their 
then  condition  of  varying  composition,  would  not  be  acceptable  in  a 
national  authority,  was  the  priaie  reason  for  fixing  a  standard  which 
