126  Developments  in  Alkaloidal  Assaying.  { Am^ch  2o9rm' 
ever,  enough  has  been  done  to  enable  us  to  say  that  we  have  arrived 
at  a  certain  point  in  the  investigation  of  practical  application  of 
drugs  where  we  can  see  that  the  things  have  cleared  themselves  in 
so  far  that  we  can  ask  ourselves  whether  it  is  not  the  proper  time  to 
combine  the  purely  chemical  and  scientific  investigation  with  the 
practical  application  and  draw  some  conclusion  as  to  the  line  of 
work  to  be  carried  on  in  the  future. 
Boulanger-Dausse  in  Bulletin  des  Sciences  Pharm.,  No.  i,  1908, 
pays  particular  attention  to  this  question  and  comes  to  the  following 
conclusions : 
The  endeavor  to  isolate  the  "  alkaloid  "  to  which  scentific  phar- 
macy paid  such  vivid  attention  for  nearly  one  hundred  years  begins 
to  lose  its  practical  significance.  The  chemistry  of  colloids  partly 
takes  its  place  and  the  chemist  and  pharmacologist  pay  more  and 
more  attention  to  certain  complex  ingredients  of  drugs,  or,  as  they 
are  usually  called,  "  extractives  "  of  drugs. 
A  diligent  and  successful  investigation  of  certain  drugs  showed 
conclusively  that  the  active  principles  isolated  from  them  in  the 
course  of  one  hundred  years  and  studied  both  chemically  and  phar- 
macologically did  not  satisfy  the  requirements  which  the  physician 
had  right  to  put  to  them.  Cinchona,  digitalis,  erg'ot,  rhubarb,  buck- 
thorn, cascara  sagrada,  kola,  opium,  and  mix  vomica  are  the  .best 
examples  illustrating  what  was  said  before. 
Many  prominent  pharmaceutic  chemists  and,  lately,  especially 
Kunz-Krause,  recognized  this  in  proper  time  and  showed  that  in 
many  cases  the  production  of  chemically  pure  active  principles  of 
drugs  can  no  longer  be  the  ultimate  purpose  of  pharmacy.  It  is 
more  proper  to  expect  that  in  the  future  pharmaceutical  science  will 
direct  its  work  toward  production  of  chemically  unchanged  colloidal 
drug  preparations  which  will  have  the  total  action  of  the  respective 
drug.  Pharmacy  will  no  longer  endeavor  to  produce  extracts  under 
conditions  favoring  the  furthest  decomposition  of  the  pharmacolog- 
ically important  constituents  of  the  drug,  but  it  will  pay  strictest 
attention  to  the  results  of  the  latest  investigations  on  active  ferments 
of  the  drug  in  order  to  prepare  extracts  and  tinctures  in  the  course 
of  production  of  which  chemical  agents  and  active  menstrua  (for 
instance,  alcohol)  are  avoided. 
As  soon  as  we  agree  which  tissues  of  the  drug  contain  the  respec- 
tive active  principles  and  whether  these  active  principles  occur  in 
the  crystalline  state  or  suspended  in  colloidal  state,  it  will  not  be 
