Extracts, Concentra′ted. Syn. Resinoids. Pharmaceutical preparations of more or less value, largely employed by the American physicians who style themselves ‘ECLECTICS,’ They are supposed to present in the most
concentrated form the medicinal virtues of the plants from which they are derived. See Resinoids.
Extracts, Fluid. Syn. Extracta fluida, Extracta liquida, L. This name has been applied in modern pharmacy to various preparations differing materially from each other in their degree of fluidity and concentration. Some of these have been already noticed, and others will be found under one or other of their synonyms. Much confusion would be avoided by confining the name ‘FLUID EXTRACT’ to those preparations only which differ from the ordinary officinal extracts in being in the liquid form; whilst others of a like character, but of less consistence or concentration, might be conveniently classed under the general denomination of ‘LIQUORS’ (LIQUORES, L.). The various condensed preparations of vegetable substances, now common in trade, professedly several times stronger than the common DECOCTIONS, INFUSIONS, and TINCTURES, might be simply and advantageously distinguished by the addition of ‘CONCENTRATED’ to their names. Tinctures made with rectified spirit, and of (say) at least 8 times the usual strength, might be appropriately termed ‘ESSENCES,’ See Decoction, Essence, Extract, Infusion, Oleo-resin, Syrup, Tincture, &c.
Extracts, Perfu′matory. See Extrait.
Extracts, Pulver′ulent. Syn. Dried extracts, Desiccated e.; Saccharated e.; Extracta pulverata, E. sicca, E. cum saccharo, L. Prep. 1. Ordinary soft extract of the drug, 4 parts; white sugar (in powder), 1 part; mix, and dry by exposure in a warm situation; lastly, reduce the mass to powder, and if it weighs less than 4 parts, triturate it with more powdered sugar until its weight is equal to the original weight of the extract used in its preparation. The strength of the extract thus continues unchanged.
2. (Ph. Bor.) As the last, but using powdered sugar of milk, in lieu of cane sugar.
3. (Gauger.) Alcoholic extract, 3 parts, rectified spirit, 1 part, are triturated together in a porcelain mortar until thoroughly incorporated, when white sugar (in powder), 15 oz., is gradually added, and the two carefully and completely blended together; the mixture is dried as before, and more sugar added until the whole weighs exactly 18 oz. Six grains represent one grain of the unprepared extract.
Obs. The above are admirable preparations, intended chiefly to render the perishable extracts of the narcotic plants (EXTRACTA NARCOTICA) less liable to suffer by age. See Extract of Aconite (Saccharated), &c.
EXTRAC′TIVE. Syn. Extractive principle. Fourcroy entertained the belief that all vegetable extracts contained a common basis of definite composition, to which he gave the name of extractive. Chevreul and other chemists have shown, however, that Fourcroy’s extractive is not a chemical compound but a heterogeneous mixture, varying in composition with the plant from which it is obtained. Extractive has a brown colour, or one becoming so in the air; it speedily putrefies, and becomes oxidised, and is rendered insoluble by long exposure to air, and by repeated solutions and evaporations. In its unaltered state it is soluble in water and in alcohol, is nearly insoluble in ether, and is precipitated from its solutions by the acids and metallic oxides. With alumina it forms the basis of several brown dyes.
EXTRAIT. [Fr.] Literally an extract. Among perfumers, extraits are mostly spirituous solutions of the essential oils or odorous principles of plants and other fragrant substance. The French commonly apply the term to any concentrated spirit, either simple or compound. In the shops of the Parisian perfumers upwards of 60 preparations of the kind are distinguished by this name. The extracts of JASMINE, JONQUIL, MAY-LILY, ORANGE BLOSSOMS, VIOLETS, and other like flowers of delicate perfume, are obtained by agitating and digesting the ‘huiles’ and ‘pomades’ of the flowers with the purest rectified spirit in the manner described under Scented Spirits (‘esprits’). This process is repeated with fresh oil or pomade until the spirit is rendered sufficiently fragrant. The other extracts (both simple and compound) are made by the common methods of infusion and distillation. See Essence, Extract, Spirit, &c.