340 
ON  FLUID  EXTRACTS. 
be  better  tban  his  neighbors,  and  also  claiming  some  marvellous 
method  of  his  own  for  cheapening  medicines.  The  evil  com- 
plained of  is  not  confined  to  fluid  extracts,  as  it  is  becoming  a 
too  common  habit  to  prepare  tinctures  and  syrups  from  these  in-  . 
ferior  commercial  preparations.  It  is  by  such  use  that  the  lack 
of  proper  quality  becomes  most  apparent.  The  writer  has  been 
shown  tinctures  and  syrups  thus  prepared  which  bore  no  resem- 
blance to  the  ofiicinal,  yet  were  dispensed  in  full  assurance  that 
the  effect  would  be  satisfactory. 
The  concentration  of  vegetable  tinctures  beyond  a  certain 
limit,  by  the  use  of  heat  (even  in  vacuo  tends  directly  to  the 
injury  of  the  same,  as  well  as  to  unnecessary  expense  and  diffi- 
culty in  the  process.  No  one  who  has  prepared  officinal  fluid 
extracts  can  doubt  that  this  limit  has  been  passed,  yet  no  advo- 
cate for  the  present  strength  has  proposed  to  dispense  w^ith  par- 
tial  evaporation,  nor  can  it  be  otherwise. 
The  larger  dose  which  will  be  required  if  the  strength  is  re- 
duced, may  be  named  as  an  objection,  but  it  has,  in  most  in- 
stances, no  value.  The  dose,  as  at  present  made,  will  vary  with 
the  drug  used,  from  one  drop  to  a  teaspoonful,  but  in  all  cases 
the  dose,  whatever  it  may  be,  is  given  diluted,  and  the  quantity 
of  drug  being  the  same,  the  diluted  dose  will  be  no  larger  in  one 
case  than  in  the  other.  It  may  be  urged  that  a  larger  quantity 
of  alcohol  will  be  given,  but  only  in  a  few  instances  will  the  ob-^ 
jection  hold  good,  and  in  none  to  a  mischievous  extent.  The  use 
of  glycerine  and  sugar,  in  many  preparations,  taking  the  place 
of  a  portion  of  the  alcohol,  forming  far  more  palatable  vehicles, 
and  when  it  is  kept  in  mind,  as  it  should  be,  that  the  majority  of 
fluid  extracts  sold  scarcely  exceed  this  reduced  strength,  these 
fancied  objections  vanish,  as  the  dose,  in  most  instances,  will  not 
be  increased  noticeably,  if  at  all,  as  any  prescription  file  will 
demonstrate. 
No  apothecary  who  dispenses  officinal  fluid  extracts  can  have 
failed,  occasionally,  to  find  himself  in  difficulty  from  the  danger- 
ous doses  prescribed  of  veratrum,  conium,  hyoscyamus  or  bella- 
donna (the  prescription  being  based  upon  the  use  of  commercial 
preparations). 
It  may  be  said  that  the  physician  is  at  fault,  but  that  does  not 
