solution is obtained, and no extract adhering undissolved on the capsule. If this solution should contain an appreciable precipitate, as from rare specimens of Opium it will, it must be filtered, and the filter be carefully washed through. Then the filtrate must be evaporated to 25 or 30 grammes. Pour the concentrated solution from the capsule into a tared flask of about 100 c.c.-3.33 fluidounces capacity, and rinse the capsule into the flask with about 5 c.c. of water used in successive portions. Then, if the solution has not required filtering, add 5 c c.17 fluidounce more of alcohol. If it has been filtered and evaporated add 10 c.c.=·33 fluid ounce of alcohol and shake well. Then add 30 c.c. 1 fluid ounce of ether, and again shake well.

This shaking together first of the watery solution and alcohol causes the alcohol to combine with the water before the ether is added. The ether then added, the second shaking saturates the watery solution and combined alcohol with ether, and then the mixture is ready for the precipitation of the alkaloid under the most favorable condition.

Add now 4 c.c.=133 fluidounce of solution of ammonia, of 10 per cent. (s. g. 960) and shake the flask vigorously until the crystals begin to separate. Then set the flask aside in a cool place for 12 hours, that the crystallization may be completed.

This shaking secures the crystallization in very small crystals, so as to be easily washed and not adherent to the flask. The crystals will then be found partly at the bottom of the flask and partly in the ether at the surface of the lower dark, watery solution. If the shaking be frequent and vigorous, two or three hours' time will be sufficient to complete the crystallization, or if it be continuous, half an hour would be sufficient, but as a general rule it is better to allow the flask to stand over night. When there is no haste, a very good method is to macerate the opium over one night-prepare the solution during the day, and allow the second night for completing the crystallization. Then finish the assay on the second day. If there be haste, however, the assay may be completed in one day by the vigorous and frequent shaking above indicated. Indeed, maceration without agitation or percolation is comparatively useless after the powder to be exhausted becomes completely saturated; and crystallization in a dense liquid like this is very slow if convection or liquid diffusion be depended upon; but agitation brings all parts of the liquid so thoroughly in intimate contact, that an half-hour's vigorous agitation must be fully equal to twelve hours' standing without agitation.

Pour off the ethereal stratum from the flask, as closely as possible, onto a tared filter of about 10 centimetres=4 inches in diameter, well wetted with ether. Add 20 c.c.66 fluid ounce of ether to the

contents of the flask, rinse round without shaking, and again pour off the ethereal stratum as closely as possible onto the filter, keeping the funnel covered. When the ethereal solution is nearly all through, wash down the edges and sides of the filter with 5 c.c.17 fluidounce of ether, and allow the filter to drain with the cover off. Then pour on the remaining contents of the flask and cover the funnel. When the liquid has nearly all passed through, rinse the flask twice with 5 c.c.17 fluidounce of water each time, pouring the rinsings with all the crystals that can be loosened onto the filter, and dry the flask in an inverted or horizontal position, and when thoroughly dry weigh it. Wash the filter and crystals with 10 c.c. =33 fluidounce of water applied drop by drop to the edges of the filter. When drained, remove the filter and contents from the funnel, close the edges of the filter together, and compress it gently between many folds of bibulous paper. Then dry it at at 100° C.=212° F. and weigh it. Remove the crystals of morphia from the filter, brush it off and re-weigh it to get the tare to be subtracted. The remainder, added to the weight of the crystals in the flask, will give the total yield of morphia, in clean distinct small light-brown crystals.

Take a small portion of these crystals,rub them into very fine powder and weigh off 1 gramme=1.54 grains. Put this in a large testtube fitted with a good cork and add 10 c.c.=33 fluidounce of officinal lime water. Shake occasionally, when the whole of the pow der should dissolve. (Absence of narcotine,) (Flückiger).

In pouring off the ethereal stratum from the flask as closely as possible, a little of the dark liquid and crystals will pass in with it, but this is of no consequence. The second portion of ether is added to dilute the remainder of the first, so as to get as much of it as possible separated before the watery liquid is poured into the filter, because this first ether contains all the narcotine and oily matters of the solution, and as the ether evaporates off from these they are deposited in the filter and with the morphia, and would be weighed with it. During this ethereal filtration the funnel is kept closely covered to prevent this evaporation and precipitation, but after the edges have been washed down with fresh ether, and the whole has passed through, there is so little of it left with the watery portion, and that little is so diluted that the whole may be poured on together. In adding the last or diluting portion of ether to the flask it is a little better to shake the whole contents together vigorously, but then it becomes necessary to wait a half hour or more for a complete separation before the ether can be poured off well. In pouring off this second portion, in order to leave as little ether as possible in the flask, it must be done very slowly, and toward the

last, in order to get it close, a cubic centimetre or two of the dark liquid will pass out with it, but this is of no consequence, as it does not interfere with the ether filtration. The ether-wet filter does not filter the watery solution rapidly, and with some opiums very slowly, indeed. And when this occurs the crystals are always darker and more likely to contain narcotine. When the filtration is so slow as to be impracticable, another assay must be made up to the point of the filtration. Then the filter must be wetted with water instead of ether, and the dark watery solution be filtered first. This is easily done by covering the mouth of the flask with the end of the finger and slowly inverting the flask. The dark liquid will then occupy the neck and can be let out slowly onto the filter to the last drop, leaving the whole ethereal liquid in the flask. The operator should be careful that no crystals remain on his finger. When the dark liquid has all passed through, the filter should be well washed with. about 10 c.c. of water, and be dried. Then the ethereal liquid and the remainder of the crystals should be poured on, and the flask be well rinsed with ether and the rinsings be poured on the filter with as many of the loose crystals as possible The filter should next be washed down with 5 c.c. of ether, and be again dried. Then the flask should be rinsed out twice with 5 c.c of water each time and the rinsings poured onto the filter, and the sides be finally washed down with water. It is very difficult to dry a substance completely in a flask if there be enough of the substance to form more than one thin layer of particles at any point, and, therefore, as few crystals as possible should be left in the flask. Usually, with good management, the quantity is only a few milligrammes. The nearer to an inverted position that a flask can be placed without closing its mouth too much, the more quickly it will dry, because the heavier, moisture-charged air can then continuously run out and be replaced with dryer air. If the flask be not rinsed out with water last, a weighable quantity of ether residue will remain in it with the small quantity of morphia. After the filter has drained in the funnel, it will still contain a very considerable amount of liquid holding soluble matters which should not be dried with the morphia, hence the necessity of removing it from the funnel, folding its edges together as it was before it was opened, and placing it between folds of bibulous paper. If a light weight be laid upon the folds of paper and the filter, to keep a little pressure upon them, the paper will draw out as much of the washings as it can hold, and thus not only remove accidental matters in solution, but greatly facilitate the drying in a short time. The taring of the filter before using is not important, but is very useful as an indication of how well the filter and contents may have been washed, for the difference in tare before and after use shows how much weighable matter has been left in the paper when the water was evaporated off, and by inference how much was left in the morphia, though the amount in the morphia is of course much smaller than in the paper. This difference in the weight of the filter before and after use, in fair average opiums, will

, not exceed 4 or 5 milligrammes, and should never exceed a centigramme. Adulterated and mixed opiums usually give greater differences and give darker crystals.

In the weight of the crystals obtained, the moving of the decimal point of the metric weight one figure to the right, of course gives the percentage of morphia.

This process, according to the skill and care with which it is managed, will give uniform results to within two or three-tenths of a per cent., and will give a true account of the morphia in all unadulterated opiums probably to within a quarter of one per cent. and the results are believed to be too low rather than too high. Adul terated opiums, however, are much more difficult to assay and yield crystals which are always darker and less clean, and therefore the results are almost always too high. Poor opiums, on the other hand, are very easy to assay, and usually give very light-colored clean morphia. The results here are liable to be too low, because when the quantity of morphia is small the alcohol and ammonia used are proportionately too large, so that much morphia may be retained in the mother liquor. Therefore, when the morphia comes out very white and in small proportion, the assay should always be repeated, evaporating the solution to 10 grammes instead of to 20, and adding 5 c.c. of aleohol instead of 10, and 2.5 or 3 c.c. of ammonia instead of 4.

is

The lime-water test for the narcotine in the results of the assay quite sufficient, since nothing except coloring matter is so likely or so liable to be present as narcotine. The only difficulty is to know when the lime-water has surely dissolved all that it will dissolve. This is facilitated by having a very fine powder, and then good judgment is required to know the value or significance of undissolved residues when they are small.

The above process is very easily applicable to the assay of such preparations of Opium as the tincture, deodorized tincture and compound solution. For the assay of these:

Take of the liquid preparation 120 c.c.=4 fluidounces. Evapo. rate at a low temperature to 10 grammes=155 grains, and from this point proceed exactly as in the above process, using, however, 5 c.c. of alcohol instead of 10, and 2.5 to 3 c.c. of ammonia instead of 4.

This quantity of the liquid preparations is equal to about 150 grains, or a little less than 10 grammes of the opium from which they were made, if made by the officinal process. The yield of morphia should be not much less than 1 gramme=15.43 grains, 4 grains to the fluid ounce, nor more than 1.5 grammes=23.15 grains=5.8 grains to the fluidounce.

If the preparations were made by assay, and bear the assay value upon the label, then the yield of morphia should agree with the assay on the label within two or three-tenths of a grain to the fluid

ounce, or in proportion to the skill and success of the assay; but there will always be some loss.

Notwithstanding all the elaborate detail and repetitions with which the writer has, perhaps, overloaded this process, there are few who will be successful with it until after two or three trials; and the younger physicians and pharmacists upon whom must fall the res ponsibility of upholding the standards of the materia medica,—to whom these elaborate details are addressed,—should not be discouraged if very many trials be needed to render them expert enough to obtain tolerably accurate and uniform results.

THE ADULTERATION BILL BEFORE CONGRESS.

The Senate Bill, 47th Congress, 1st Session, S. 649, "To Prevent the Adulteration of Food or Drugs," introduced by Mr. Miller, of New York, December 20th, 1881, is now fairly before Congress and the public for consideration. This Bill is practically the same as those recently enacted by the Legislatures of New York and New Jersey; that is, being modeled upon the same plan, it contains the same advantages and defects. This Bill, when it becomes a law, will be likely to serve as a model for laws with similar objects in other States, and therefore it should be considered with great care and deliberation, and as many defects as practicable should be eliminated before it becomes a law. The Bill is as follows:

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.

DECEMBER 20, 1881.

MR. MILLER, of New York, asked and, by unanimous consent, obtained leave to bring the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce:

A BILL

TO PREVENT THE ADULTERATION OF FOOD OR Drugs.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That no person or corporation shall knowingly transport, or cause to be transported, from the State, District or Territory in which he resides or does business, into any other State or Territory, or from any foreign country, or other State or Territory, into the State or Territory in which he resides or does business, for sale or barter, or to be offered for sale or barter, any article of food or drugs adulterated within the meaning of this act ; and any person violating the above provision shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than fifty dollars for each offence.

SEOTION 2. That no person shall, within the District of Columbia, or in any