Am.  Jour.  Pharm.\ 
July,  1892.  J 
Assay  of  Nux  Vomica. 
343 
tendency  to  loss."  I  may  add  that  with  proper 'precautions,  in  the 
natural  combination  with  brucine,  this  "tendency  to  loss"  is  mostly, 
if  not  entirely,  overcome,  for  brucine  renders  it  amorphous  and  pre- 
vents it  from  crystallizing  and  springing  from  the  dish.  This  loss 
may  also  be  prevented  largely  by  using  tall  beaker  glasses  or  flasks 
for  evaporators,  but  even  then,  if  rapid  boiling  is  permitted,  the  top 
of  the  vessel  may  with  advantage  be  covered  with  a  fine  wire  gauze, 
tared  previously  with  the  vessel  and  weighed  with  it  afterward. 
The  following  experiments  indicate  the  varying  results  without  such 
precautions: 
Tabtjb  III. 
0-020  gm.  of  strychnine  from  chloroformic  solution  lost  by  boiling 
to  dryness  in  an  open  beaker  glass  (3  inches  deep,  2^  inches  wide,) 
0-002  gm. 
0-522  gm.,  lost  o-o66  gm. 
o'ioo   "     "    0*0055  " 
o*ioo   "     "    0-015  " 
When  the  beakers  were  covered  with  fine  wire  gauze  (No.  60 
steel,  nickel-plated),  under  like  conditions,  no  loss  was  experienced. 
By  spontaneous  evaporation  in  deep  platinum  dishes  and  final 
dry  room  exposure  no  loss  occurred.1 
Other  experiments  coincided  with  the  foregoing,  and  it  may  be 
accepted  that  in  assay  work,  with  precautions  to  avoid  such  disturb- 
ances, the  loss  of  strychnine  is  not  enough  to  overcome  the  gain  in 
brucine. 
(4)  Is  Strychnine  completely  abstracted  from  the  Iron  Magma  ? — 
By  abstracting  known  amounts  of  strychnine,  according  to  the  usual 
process,  from  the  officinal  menstruum  for  making  the  fluid  extract, 
it  was  found,  as  with  brucine,  that  the  magma  was  completely 
depleted  of  alkaloid.  Neither  the  sense  of  taste  nor  testing  the 
depleted  magma  chemically  could  detect  it;  rapidly  evaporating  the 
chloroformic  solutions  therefrom,  however,  when  no  alkaloid 
remained  in  the  magma,  resulted  in  variable  returns,  the  loss  rang- 
ing from  0  001  to  o  015  gm.  to  each  portion  of  chloroformic  solution 
of  strychnine  (o-ioo  gm.)  operated  upon,  which,  however,  was  not 
greater  than  resulted  from  the  rapid  evaporation  of  chloroformic 
solutions  of  known  amounts  of  strychnine  (see  Table  III)     In  both 
1  The  objection  to  spontaneous  evaporation  is  from  the  time  required. 
