146 
Oleoresins. 
Am.  Jour,  Pharm, 
March,  1892. 
ether  until  for  every  100  parts  of  powdered  drug  used,  150  parts  of 
percolate  are  obtained. 
In  1872,  Prof.  J.  M.  Maisch  (American  Journal  of  Pharmacy, 
1872,  208),  published  a  review  of  the  experiments  of  A.  H.  Bolton 
and  Milton  W.  Roth.  The  former  of  these  extracted  capsicum, 
ginger  and  cubebs  with  benzin,  and  regarded  the  products  as  repre- 
senting the  drugs  in  question.  The  latter  reported  experiments 
with  ginger  and  cubebs,  from  which  it  appeared  that  these  powders, 
after  extraction  with  benzin,  yielded  to  ether  some  non-volatile 
matters.  The  benzin  oleoresins  were  soluble  in  ether,  but  the 
ethereal  yielded  precipitate  with  benzin.  These  experiments  proved, 
at  least  regarding  cubebs,  the  deduction  of  Prof.  Procter  in  1866. 
Prof.  Henry  Trimble,  in  a  report  to  the  Pennsylvania  Pharmaceu- 
tical Association  (see  Proceedings  of  that  Association,  1888)  on 
commercial  oleoresins,  detailed  a  series  of  experiments  on  the  use 
of  benzin  for  this  purpose.  He  concluded  that  while  it  was  prefer- 
able to  concentrated  ether  for  the  extraction  of  capsicum  it  would 
not  answer  for  the  other  officinal  oleoresins.  The  truth  is  most 
likely,  that  as  a  result  of  more  tliorough  investigations  it  will  be  found 
advisable  to  adopt  different  menstrua  for  the  different  drugs. 
The  writer  was  led  some  two  years  or  more  ago,  to  experiment 
with  benzin  for  this  purpose,  and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  its 
use  was  not  admissible  in  the  officinal  oleoresins,  with,  possibly, 
the  single  exception  of  capsicum,  pointed  out  by  Prof.  Trimble, 
and  then  only  under  certain  restrictions  which  will,  be  mentioned 
under  that  title. 
About  the  same  time  it  occurred  to  the  writer  that  a  substitute 
for  ether  might  be  found  in  acetone.  The  first  experiments  were 
tried  with  acetone  procured  from  the  distillers  of  wood  products. 
Although  guaranteed  to  be  85  per  cent,  acetone,  it  was  found  to 
consist  largely  of  methyl  alcohol,  and  even  higher  boiling  fractions, 
and  was  found  to  be  entirely  unsuited  for  the  purpose.  Attempts  to 
purify  it  by  fractional  distillation  proved  so  unsatisfactory  that  its 
use  was  abandoned.  Subsequently,  I  was  enabled  to  procure  some 
acetone  as  made  by  the  manufacturers  of  chloroform  by  roasting 
acetate  of  calcium  or  barium,  and  the  object  of  the  present  paper 
is  to  record  some  of  the  experiments  tried  therewith,  to  decide  to 
what  extent  it  might  replace  ether  in  the  manufacture  of  oleoresins. 
Acetone,  as  procured  from  this  source,  is  a  colorless  liquid,  having 
