State Board of Health : report of Willis G. Tucker, analyst of drugs.

  • New York (State). Board of Health.
Date:
[1889]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: State Board of Health : report of Willis G. Tucker, analyst of drugs. 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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    Compound Sitrit of Ether— (Spiritus A ether in Compositus, TJ. S. P.). Forty-nine samples examined, of which four were of good quality, while there were of fair quality four, and inferior, thirty-nine. One sample consisted of alcohol and another of a mixture of alcohol and chloroform. Concerning this article I quote from my last annual report: “ Compound spirit of ether or ‘ Hoffman’s anodyne ’ is frequently prescribed by physicians and often employed as a household remedy and while an article of good quality can be procured from responsible manufacturers or prepared without difficulty by the intelligent and careful pharmacist the fact is that a spurious article answering to none of the requirements of the Pharmacopoeia is generally sold in its stead because it is cheaper. Hoffman’s anodyne is openly quoted at fifty cents a pound in a recent price- list published in a leading pharmaceutical journal which is about one-quarter the price of the real article. This cheap, spurious and worthless article, obtained as a secondary product in the manufacture of ether consists chiefly of alcohol, ether and water with little or none of the ethereal oil upon which the virtue of the preparation largely depends. Dealers may urge that the sale of this spurious article as a household remedy to people who would complain of the price necessarily charged for a genuine article is excusable ; but without admitting this as a valid excuse for dis- pensing a fraudulent and worthless drug it is evident that its sale in response to a physician’s prescription or written order giving full title and specifying “U. S. P.” is entirely inexcusable and unwarranted and equally blameworthy, whether due to ignorance or cupidity. The habit of keeping two qualities of officinal drugs can not be too strongly condemned but the results of the above examination would seem to show that many dealers, so far as this preparation is concerned, keep only one and that a spurious article. When officinal preparations are called for they should be furnished by the dealer or no sale made.” The specific gravity of this preparation is not stated in the Pharmacopoeia but it should be about 0.796. As made by the process laid down in the Pliarmacapoeia of 1870, in which ether, and not stronger ether, was employed and more of the etlieral oil was used, it had a specific gravity of 0.815, but the specific gravity alone is no criterion of quality. The following table gives particulars concerning the samples examined :