.m.  Jour.  Pharin. 
Dec,  1892. 
Solutions  of  Medicinal  Resins. 
633 
trusted  with  the  drying.  A  drying  house  has  been  erected, 
capable  of  accommodating  180  frames.  This  is  heated  by  steam 
pipes  to  1400  F.  The  value  and  market  price  of  arrowroot  depends 
so  much  on  the  color  and  quality,  that  the  greatest  care  is  neces- 
sary  throughout  its  manufacture,  and  only  very  clear  water  is  used 
in  the  washing. 
SOLUTIONS  OF  MEDICINAL  RESINS.1 
By  Harold  Wyatt,  Junr. 
Early  in  the  year  my  interest  was  excited  by  a  question  asked  at 
one  of  the  meetings  of  the  Liverpool  Pharmaceutical  Students' 
Society  as  to  the  best  method  of  making  a  solution  of  jalap  resin 
in  glycerin  for  use  as  a  rectal  injection.  The  usual  mode  of  deal- 
ing with  similar  bodies,  by  dissolving  them  in  alcohol  and  making 
the  resulting  solution  into  an  emulsion,  could  not  be  followed, 
owing  to  the  manner  in  which  the  preparation  was  to  be  adminis- 
tered and  as  jalapin  is  practically  insoluble  in  glycerin,  a  simple 
solution  was  out  of  the  question.  On  using  the  sapo  jalapas  of  the 
German  Pharmacopoeia — made  by  dissolving  4  parts  each  of  Castile 
soap  and  jalap  resin  in  8  parts  of  alcohol  and  evaporating  to  9 
parts — not  more  than  an  equivalent  of  2  grains  of  jalap  resin  could 
be  got  into  a  fluid  drachm  of  glycerin  without  increasing  the 
viscosity  of  the  liquid  to  such  an  extent  that  it  did  not  run  easily 
from  the  syringe.  Bearing  in  mind  a  paper  on  the  use  of  resin  soap 
as  an  emulsifying  agent,  read  by  Mr.  Collier,  of  Guy's  Hospital,  at 
an  evening  meeting  of  the  Pharmaceutical  Society,  in  March,  1890, 
it  struck  me  that,  as  most  resins  dissolve  in  alkaline  solutions, 
forming  soaps,  jalap  resin  would,  when  similarly  operated  on,  behave 
in  like  manner  and  moreover  the  soap  formed  would  act  as  an 
emulsifier  to  any  of  the  constituents  of  the  resin  not  saponifiable. 
Reference  to  "  Pharmacographia"  eliciting  the  fact  that  jalap  resin 
was  soluble  in  alkaline  solutions  I  put  the  idea  into  practice,  but 
had  to  abandon  the  use  of  potassic  or  sodic  hydrate  for  the  purpose, 
in  consequence  of  the  difficulty  there  was  in  obtaining  a  neutral 
soap  solution.  Finally,  by  using  solution  of  ammonia  as  the  saponi- 
fying agent,  and  evaporating  the  resulting  liquid  after  the  addition 
1  Read  before  the  Liverpool  Pharmaceutical  Students'  Society  ;  reprinted 
from  the  Chemist  and  Druggist,  Octbr.  29,  1892. 
