Report on the U.S. pharmacopoeia ; Note on rhubarb, for 1869. Note on collodion / by F.C. Mussgiller. Liquor opii compositus ; by Edward R. Squibb.

E. R. Squibb

Date:: 1870

Credit: Report on the U.S. pharmacopoeia ; Note on rhubarb, for 1869. Note on collodion / by F.C. Mussgiller. Liquor opii compositus ; by Edward R. Squibb. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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$absolutely free from sulphur compounds, ami not necessary to be so for pharmaci-utical uses. Acidum Nitn'cuju rarely or never colorless except whon re- cently heated, and not necessary to be so. Acidum Sulphuricum. As a practical fact it is impossible to get sulphuric acid in quantities having the s. g. 1*843. Once within the past six years your reporter induced a large manufac- turer to make about ten carboys, the s. g. of which was 1-843, but it contained a little lead, which must have increased the s. g. This exporinicnt was attended with so much injury to the pla- tinum apparatus tliat it was never repeated, and this is the only occasion on which your reporter has ever seen officinal sulphuric acid from the ordinary sources accessible to the druggist and pharmacist. lie is of the opinion that it can an<l should be made by the manufacturer, by care and the use of a different fuel under the stills, at a cost not greater than eight or ten cents per pound, paying three times the usual profit at this price. But from ignorance and want of care in those who use it, and from the plus inaccuracy of common hydrometers when used for sul- phuric acid, the demand is too small to warrant manufacturers in producing it. The average of the best commercial acid called Concentrated, Bauun?, has an average s. g. of about 1-835 by a good hydrometer. Whilst the best hydrometers usually mark about 0-002 too high with sueh liquids, when compared with a good s. g. bottle, liy ])ainsand care, and by going direct to the uianufacturer with sufficient inducement in ))rice to pay him for tlie trouble, an acid can always be had which, with the small amount of lead in solution, will have a s. g. of 1-839 or 1*840; and the variation in such acid appears to be more in the proportion of lead than in the true acid strength. It seems fair to infer, therefor^\ that with such acid, at best, the formulas of the Pharmacopoeia arc supplied in general use; and as the acid is otherwise of excellent quality and cheap, though very rarely colorless, it would be wise to name a lower s. g. for the officinal acid. The last test given, namely, hydrosulphuric acid, is of no practical use, since the writer has never seen a single specimen of commercial sulphuric acid so free from lead as not to respond affirmatively to a proper application of this test. Nor is it neoes-$