A companion to the United States Pharmacopoeia : being a commentary on the latest edition of the pharmacopoeia and containing the descriptions, properties, uses, and doses of all official and numerous unofficial drugs and preparations in current use in the United States, together with practical hints, working formulas, etc., designed as a ready reference book for pharmacists, physicians, and students : with over 650 original illustrations / by Oscar Oldberg and Otto A. Wall.

  • Oscar Oldberg
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A companion to the United States Pharmacopoeia : being a commentary on the latest edition of the pharmacopoeia and containing the descriptions, properties, uses, and doses of all official and numerous unofficial drugs and preparations in current use in the United States, together with practical hints, working formulas, etc., designed as a ready reference book for pharmacists, physicians, and students : with over 650 original illustrations / by Oscar Oldberg and Otto A. Wall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    113/1236 (page 99)
    aloin in some kinds (as Cape Aloes). If the mode of pre])ariiig the drug were the same in all places where it is })roduced, the differences between Socotrine, Barbadoes, and Cape aloes might, perhaps be less marked. Constituents.— Aloe-Bitter, or that portion of aloes which is soluble in cold water, is the valuable portion, while the Aloe-Resin is almost inert. Alkalies dissolve the resin, which is re-precipitated by the addition of acid. All aloes contain Aloin. Long boiling in water renders the aloin amorphous. This circumstance may account, in a great measure, for the differences noted between the several principal varieties of aloes as to their aloin, which is sometimes crystalline and sometimes amorphous. Thus good Socotrine aloes contains numerous crystals of aloin, whils no crystalline particles are visible in Cape aloes. ALOINUM. Aloin. True aloin is a neutral principal peculiar to aloes. Sometimes it is crystalline, and sometimes amorphous. As usually met with in the trade and in the shops, it is an amorphous, dirty, yellowish-brown powder. T. & H. Smith, of Edinburgh and London, the discoverers of aloin, pre- pare pure Barbaioin and Socaloin, which have a clean yellow color and crystalline structure. Aloin is odorless, and has an at first sweetish, but afterward extremely bitter, taste. It is almost insoluble in cold water, but readily soluble in boiling water and in alcohol. Crystalline aloin is changed into the' amorphous variety by long boiling in water. Alkalies and alkaline salts, when present, hasten this alteration, while acids pre- vent it. Socaloin—the aloin from Socotrine aloes—crystallizes in needles. It is of a dark lemon-yellow color, and is soluble in thirty parts alcohol and in ninety parts water. Nitric acid has no effect upon it. Babbaloik—aloin from Barbadoes aloes—is much darker than soc- aloin, being of an orange-yellow color, and crystallizes in prismatic needles. It dissolves readily in warm, but not as readily in cold, water or alcohol as socaloin. With a drop of nitric acid it turns crimson. By the action of nitric acid upon it chrysammic acid is one of the products formed. Barbaioin is the Aloin of the market. Nataloin—from Natal (an inferior kind of African hepatic) aloes —is very light yellow, and crystallizes in scales. It turns crimson with nitric acid, but yields no chrysammic acid with it.