Report ... on the adulteration of drugs. 2nd March 1838.

  • Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report ... on the adulteration of drugs. 2nd March 1838. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the manufacture of the salt ; but impurity from this cause is of little consequence to medical practice, because it never exceeds one, two, or at the utmost five per cent. Not unfrequently, however, it amounts to ten per cent or upwards, for which care¬ lessness is the lightest excuse that can be found ; and I have ex¬ amined specimens, at one time very generally to be met with in this country, where the carbonate with its accompanying water amounted to ninety parts in the hundred,-—which, it need scarcely be said, wrasan express sophistication. Can we wonder then, that practitioners should complain of the iodide of potassium, that they have given it for months, nay even for years, without ob¬ serving any effect either on the constitution, or on the disease for which it was administered ? Another adulteration is with muriate of soda or potash. Some have considered this to be a frequent impurity. But I have not met with it so often as the other, and it has appeared to me always less in amount, sel¬ dom surpassing ten per cent. It is an intentional adulteration ; at least there is no circumstance in the processes for preparing iodide of potassium which can lead to its accidental introduction, except in small quantity. 2. Iodine itself is another instance. Various impregnations of Iodine have been indicated by authors, such as with oxide of manganese, brick dust, and other substances of a fixed nature ; which however I have never met with throughout a long train of investigations. But there is another impurity, at present sel¬ dom wanting in British iodine, and which has not yet been publicly noticed. This is with water. It is probably not very easy to prevent a certain impregnation with water. But nothing except gross carelessness or fraud will account for the presence of fifteen per cent which I. have separated, or for twenty per cent, which I am informed by M. Robiquet of Paris is not unfrequently found in the British iodine imported into France. Perhaps this amount of impurity is not of very material conse quence to medical practice, the variation of the dose by a fifth part being probably not so important as many would have us think. The admixture however is not the less a fraud,—a fraud, I may add, which, according to M. Robiquet, has of late greatly reduced the demand in France for iodine of British manufacture. 3. Another good example is the spirit of Nitric Ether, a medicine of much value, and in most extensive use. I have not myself made any experiments upon its adulterations. But the
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