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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    subject may be equally well illustrated from the evidence de¬ livered in 1834, by Mr Cooper, Lecturer on Chemistry in Lon¬ don, before the Medical Education Committee of the House of Commons. Mr Cooper, while travelling between Bath and Lon¬ don, happened to call for an acquaintance, a chemist and druggist in one of the intermediate towns. During his visit, the travelling member of a wholesale house in London called in pursuit of his occupation, and among other things offered for sale the spirit of nitric ether. His customer asked him its price, to which he re¬ plied that he had it of three prices ; 2s., 3s. 6d., and 4s. 6d. a pound. The retailer ordered the article of the second quality. This drug is subject to a certain variety, because it is not a regular and definite compound, but a mere mixture of rectified spirit and nitric ether. Certain differences must exist, according as it is prepared by the process of the Edinburgh, the London, or the Dub- blin Pharmacopoeias. But it need scarcely be said that no such dif¬ ferences will account for so extravagant a variety of price, as that mentioned by Mr Cooper, and that the two inferior qualities of the drug must have been adulterated, probably with rectified spi¬ rit, or the cheaper addition of water. 4. A most important set of adulterations are those practised upon substances of very great energy, and which are given in mi¬ nute doses. For here it is not merely a fraud that the public must submit to; life itself may in consequence be brought into danger. Of this, Hydrocyanic Acid is an excellent example. The profession are generally aware of the extreme uncertainty of the strength of this formidable medicine. The fact has been often brought experimentally under my notice ; but I prefer at present to quote some recent observations made by Dr Fyfe, and present¬ ed by him in a Report to the Committee on Adulterations appoint¬ ed by the College of Surgeons. Few medicines perhaps are sub¬ ject to so many sources of variation as hydrocyanic acid. It is prepared by different processes, which are calculated to yield it of various strengths. Variations arise even where the same process is followed, according as the rapidity of the distillation varies, or the temperature of the refrigerator. It loses some of its acid un¬ less carefully preserved. And a further diminution invariably oc¬ curs in the shop of the druggist, as the contents of a bottle are gradually dispensed. For one or another or all of these reasons the proportion of real acid differs exceedingly. Among samples