ECONOMIZING  ALCOHOL  IN  MAKING  FLUID  EXTRACTS.  223 
with  druggists,  I  find  some  of  them  are  prejudiced  against  pres- 
sing, and  very  much  in  favor  of  percolation  ;  this  comes  from 
the  fact  that  they  have  worked  with  good  displacers,  but  with 
very  inferior  presses.  The  press  I  have  been  using  has  all  the 
latest  and  best  improvements,  and  is  so  arranged  that  the  sub- 
stance being  pressed  is  readily  removed  and  readily  parts  with 
its  liquid  whilst  under  pressure,  while  most  presses  used  by 
druggists  are  very  weak  and  poorly  arranged  affairs. 
For  making  solid  extracts,  a  most  perfect  preparation  and  a 
stronger  extract  can  be  made  by  evaporating  a  fluid  extract  made 
by  my  process  than  can  be  made  by  any  other  plan.  Druggists 
adopting  my  plan  for  making  fluid  extracts  can  always  make  a 
solid  extract  at  very  short  notice  by  evaporating  the  fluid  ex- 
tract to  a  solid,  and  have  a  most  reliable  article,  if  the  very  small 
amount  of  evaporation  necessary  is  carefully  conducted.  Solid 
extracts  made  in  this  way  will  be  stronger  than  made  in  any 
other  way,  because  of  the  very  small  amount  of  menstruum  used  ; 
the  inert  parts  of  the  drug  are  not  so  readily  dissolved  out  as  the 
medicinal  parts  are,  especially  if  the  solvent  or  menstruum  used 
be  exactly  right.  When  a  revision  of  the  Pharmacopoeia  is  made, 
I  would  suggest  to  the  revisors  that,  as  far  as  practicable,  for  the 
sake  o€  uniformity,  the  fluid  extracts  be  made  without  sugar,  ex- 
cept in  cases  where  a  small  quantity  could  be  advantageously 
used  as  a  solvent  or  assistant  solvent,  and  that  they  be  made 
with  the  lowest  amount  of  alcohol  consistent  with  preservation, 
using  alkali,  glycerine,  sugar  or  any  other  substances  that 
would  assist  in  dissolving  and  holding  in  solution  the  medical 
of  the  subsequent  portions,  because  the  first  stratum  of  liquid  that  descends 
in  a  well  arranged  percolator  exerts  its  action  consecutively  upon  each 
stratum  of  the  drug,  until  it  becomes  saturated.  We  all  have  perco- 
lators, but  very  few  of  us  presses  of  the  capacity  necessary  to  work 
out  the  problem.  It  is  therefore  highly  proper  that  the  author  of  the  pro- 
cess himself,  furnished  as  he  is  with  the  means,  should  make  these  experi- 
mental trials,  and  offer  them  as  the  basis  of  his  opinions,  for  others  to 
substantiate  or  refute, — and  not  come  forward  with  mere  assertions,  without, 
so  far  as  we  can  judge,  any  therapeutic  trials,  or  any  analyses  or  evapora- 
tions to  decide  the  actual  merits  of  the  process. 
The  reception  of  this  paper  just  as  we  were  going  to  press,  prevents  our 
accompanying  it  by  a  more  detailed  and  explicit  commentary. — Ed.  Am.  J.Ph.1 
