Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
October,  1909.  J 
Assay  of  Heart  Tonics. 
473 
The  averages  indicate  the  actual  results  obtained  on  all  the  samples 
of  the  preparations  tested  since  the  year  1901.  The  records  for  the 
previous  five  years  were  unfortunately  destroyed  in  a  fire  that  we 
had  in  our  laboratory  in  1903,  consequently  the  figures  for  that 
period  are  not  available.  It  should  be  observed  that  the  figure  for 
the  standard  tincture  of  strophanthus  was  given  in  the  paper  pub- 
TABLE  X. 
STANDARD   TINCTURE   STROPHANTHUS   5   PER  CENT.,   U.   S.   P.  189O. 
M.  F.  D.  Tincture  Strophanthus,  prepared  from  samples  of  drug  bought  on  American 
market. 
1  00015  8   00015 
2   00026  9   00022 
3  00015  10   .00017 
4   .00012  11   00016 
5   00013  12   00015 
6   00015  13  00025 
7  00010  14  00033 
(Presented  before  A.  M.  A..  June.  1898.) 
Average  M.  F.  D.  =  .00017  =  588  H.  T.U.s  per  Cc. 
Standard  proposed  for  U.  S.  P.,  7th  Revision  =  600  H.  T.  U.s  per  Cc. 
Standard  proposed  for  U.  S.  P.,  8th  Revision  =  1200  H.  T.  U.s  per  Cc. 
(See  also  Table  I.) 
lished  in  1898,  and  that  it  closely  approximates  with  those  derived 
from  the  assay  of  134  samples  of  tincture  of  strophanthus  tested, 
as  stated,  since  the  year  1901. 
GENERAL  CONCLUSIONS. 
It  seems  to  us  we  are  warranted  in  concluding,  since  the  chemical 
assay  of  the  heart  tonics  of  the  digitalis  series  has  been  so  thoroughly 
demonstrated  to  be  unreliable,  that  some  method  of  pharmacological 
assay  must  be  adopted  in  order  to  safeguard  the  therapeutic  appli- 
cation of  these  products: 
Nearly  fifteen  years'  experience  has  shown  that  the  method 
proposed  gives  reasonably  accurate  results. 
For  the  fluidextract  of  digitalis  and  the  fluidextract  of  squill, 
U.S. P.  8th  Revision,  we  do  not  feel  warranted  at  this  time  in  pro- 
posing a  standard  for  activity,  as  we  have  found  that  the  menstruums 
proposed  for  these  products  do  not  completely  exhaust  the  drug. 
We  believe  it  wise  to  adopt  a  heart  tonic  unit  (H.T.U.)  which 
is  ten  times  the  normal  minimum  fatal  dose  per  gramme  body 
weight  of  standard  test  frogs  kept  under  proper  test  conditions. 
