As™ptembeM9ol?" }     Quinime  et  Strychnines  Phospliatum.  447 
The  trouble  in  making  a  permanent  preparation  probably  started 
with  the  original  formula,  and  for  many  years  change  after  change 
was  suggested,  until,  at  the  present  time,  the  British  Pharmacopoeia 
and  the  United  States  Pharmacopoeia  both  contain  processes  which 
are  essentially  different,  and  both  of  which  have  the  same  disad- 
vantages regarding  the  lack  of  stability  of  the  preparation. 
The  variation  in  the  strength  of  the  preparation  since  Dr. 
Aitken's  original  formula  is  noteworthy;  the  present  U.S.P.  giving 
a  preparation  which  contains  1  grains  of  iron  phosphate,  I  ^ 
grains  quinine  sulphate  and  grain  of  strychnine  to  the  fluid 
drachm;  while  the  present  B.P.  gives  I  grain  ferrous  phosphate,  |- 
grain  quinine  sulphate  and      grain  strychnine  to  the  fluid  drachm. 
Many  authors  considered  the  difficulty  of  precipitation  as  being 
due  to  the  ferrous  phosphate,  so  many  changes  were  proposed  in 
this  ingredient  some  changing  this  ingredient  to  ferric  phosphate 
which  is  the  salt  present  in  the  U.S.P.  preparation.  Among  the 
compounds  of  iron  which  were  used  may  be  mentioned  ferrous  sul- 
phate, solution  of  ferric  sulphate,  solution  of  iron  and  sub-sulphate  and 
at  the  present  time  the  British  Pharmacopoeia  directs  the  use  of  iron 
wire  and  phosphoric  acid,  thus  forming  ferrous  phosphate  ;  while  the 
United  States  Pharmacopoeia  takes  the  scale  salt,  known  as  iron  phos- 
phate, which  is  in  reality  a  citro-phosphate  of  ferric  iron  and  sodium. 
The  British  process  was  suggested  by  R.  Wright  at  the  British 
Pharmaceutical  Conference  in  1893  ;  but  the  idea  was  first  suggested 
by  Simonson  in  a  paper  read  before  the  Ohio  Pharmaceutical 
Association  in  1890;  Wright,  however,  not  giving  credit  to  Simon- 
son  for  the  work  previously  done  on  the  subject. 
The  most  recent  paper,  which  has  dealt  with  the  subject,  is  that 
of  F.  W.  Haussmann  in  the  American  Journal  of  Pharmacy  for 
May,  1900,  in  which  he  states  that  the  main  trouble  is  due  to  cara- 
melization  of  the  sugar,  thereby  causing  the  preparation  to  darken 
in  color.  He  made  some  experiments  with  a  view  to  reducing  the 
quantity  of  acid  in  the  preparation,  but  upon  cutting  down  the 
amount  of  phosphoric  acid,  the  preparation  lost  its  former  stability. 
As  it  stands  at  present,  the  preparation  is  fairly  permanent  as  far 
as  precipitation  goes,  but  is  very  prone  to  darken  upon  standing 
and  the  difficulty  has  been  experienced  of  having  sulphuretted 
odors  evolved  upon  standing,  in  cases  where  the  preparation  has 
been  made  with  the  use  of  granulated  sugar,  which  contained 
