286  Use  of  Wood  Alcohol  Pharmaceutical^.     { *m-j™£;^lnu- 
the  druggists,  and  a  reasonable  reduction  in  price  is  made.  Any 
effort  to  prepare  a  wood  alcohol  that  can  be  used  surreptitiously  in 
place  of  grain  alcohol  should  be  sternly  frowned  down  ;  if  it  is  to  be 
used — and  I  hope  to  see  it  in  its  proper  place  among  pharmaceutical 
solvents — this  use  must  be  open  and  above  board,  sanctioned  by  the 
weight  of  authority  unimpeachable. 
As  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  learn  from  study  of  the  literature  on 
the  subject  as  found  in  our  drug  journals,  there  is  but  one  way  to 
get  rid  of  the  peculiar  odor  of  wood  alcohol  and  that  is  to  eliminate 
the  impurities  that  give  it  this  odor.  The  addition  of  many  essential 
oils  and  substances  possessing  a  powerful  odor  will,  to  some  extent, 
mask  the  odor  of  wood  alcohol,  but  they  will  not  mask  it  so  that  the 
trained  nose  cannot  detect  it,  and,  from  some  experiments  I  have 
made,  I  would  say  in  addition  that  it  is  a  waste  of  these  oils  even  to 
try  to  hide  that  peculiar  "methylated  "  odor;  it  will  come  out.  The 
odor  of  wood  alcohol  is  not  due  to  the  methyl  alcohol  it  contains, 
but  is  due  to  its  impurities — acetone,  furfurol,  methyl  acetate,  allyl 
and  amyl  alcohols,  aldehyde,  etc. — and  when  these  are  thoroughly 
removed  we  get  a  spirit  that  can  scarce  be  distinguished  from  a  pure 
grain  spirit,  one  admirably  adapted  for  use  in  making  the  cheaper 
perfumes.  The  process  of  removal  is  mainly  chemical  treatment 
and  fractional  distillation  ;  it  is  profitable  only  on  a  large  scale. 
Such  a  "  pure  "  wood  alcohol,  or,  as  it  is  then  better  named,  pure 
methyl  alcohol,  can  now  be  easily  obtained. 
In  making  a  number  of  solid  extracts  of  some  of  the  narcotic 
drugs  with  methyl  alcohol,  in  which  the  menstruum  was  strong  in 
alcohol,  I  made  the  observation  that  such  solid  extracts  seemed  to 
be  more  brittle  and  easier  to  powder  than  when  made  with  grain 
alcohol,  and  it  also  seemed  to  me  that  these  extracts  were  freer  from 
inert  extractive  than  the  latter.  This  is  a  point  that  invites  further 
investigation,  especially  so  as  it  has  been  proven  that  methyl  alcohol 
will  extract  the  active  principle  of  these  drugs  equally  as  well  as  does 
grain  alcohol.  In  my  work,  such  extracts  assayed  well  up  in  alka- 
loidal  strength,  and  proved  easier  of  assay,  too,  from  being  freer 
from  extractive  matter. 
Wood  alcohol  has  been  suggested  for  making  tincture  of  iodine — 
this  should  be  positively  prohibited,  as  such  a  tincture  is  violently 
irritating,  decidedly  caustic  in  effect  and  will  blister  or  cause  an 
eruption  on  tender  skins.    When  used  around  the  face  or  neck,  its 
