Beneficial as the establishment of this office may be in preventing the admission of any but genuine articles from abroad, in the present state of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal regulations, it merely serves as a stimulus to the exercise of ingenuity at home, for producing those adulterations no longer supplied from the other side of the water. It is hardly necessary to say that rogues are to be found in every nation and in every clime, but I am justified (as I believe) in asserting that the spurious articles, at present met with in our market, are manufactured by foreigners whose métier has been destroyed by the passage of the drug bill. It is positively certain that parties who some years since conducted a factory in Brussels, from which spurious sulphate of quinine, sulphate of morphine, narcotine, &c., were palmed upon the citizens of the United States as genuine, are now at work in a city not one hundred miles distant.

How is this home adulteration to be met? The appointment of a home inspector of drugs, whose duty it should be to visit, from time to time, our apothecaries’ establishments, and to inspect the quality of the drugs therein, would be at variance {75} with republican ideas; too much like the excise law of England so obnoxious to the semi-republican inhabitants of Great Brittain. This question, however, has been sufficiently discussed by others more able than myself. The remedy for these abuses rests with the druggists themselves. Legislative enactments are useless. The present college of pharmacy which includes in its list of trustees, some of the leading phar­ma­ceu­tists of the country, has done much towards elevating the profession. It is to be hoped that the laws under which they act will be extended to other states, and that no apothecary, unless duly licensed by the society, shall have any right to pursue his profession without the diploma of the college.

It is a matter of congratulation that some houses in this city, and those doing an extensive business, and of the highest reputation, have associated with themselves partners possessing a competent knowledge of chemistry. From these houses nothing can be obtained which is not up to the standard. Our apothecaries will find it to their advantage in the end, to employ persons possessing sufficient knowledge to enable them to detect adulterations in drugs, and not only that, but to be able to prepare the most difficult articles.

I shall relate in this paper some instances of home adulterations which have recently come under my notice. I have been furnished by retail druggists in the city with several specimens of the bitartrate of potassa. The results of the examination of five different specimens are here given:

No. 1.Bitartrate of Potassa, 50 per cent.
Sulphate of Lime, 50 per cent.
100
No. 2.Bitartrate of Potassa, 65 per cent.
Sulphate of Lime, 35 per cent.
100
No. 3.Bitartrate of Potassa, 70 per cent.
Sulphate of Lime, 30 per cent.
100
No. 4.Bitartrate of Potassa, 75 per cent.
Sulphate of Lime, 25 per cent.
100

No. 5 contains a small per centage of carbonate of potassa and a considerable amount of carbonate of lime. No weighings were made, but the amount of adulteration was apparently much less than in the other cases.

I have also had occasion to examine some specimens of iodide of potassium, procured from some of the first druggists in the city.

Specimen No. 1, contained:
Iodide of Potassium, 64 per cent.
Chloride of Potassium, 36 per cent.
100
No. 2.Iodide of Potassium, 70 per cent.
Chloride of Potassium and Carbonate of Potassium, 30 per cent.
100
No. 3.Iodide of Potassium, 35 per cent.
Chloride of Potassium and Chloride of Sodium, 65 per cent.
100

In numerous examinations made of the bitartrate of potassa and of the iodide of potassium from foreign sources, I have never detected in the iodide of potassium more than 15 per cent of impurities, nor in the bitrate of potassa, as imported from France, more than 8 per cent. Of course the crude commercial argol always contains a small amount of tartrate of lime.

In a sample of so called “cod liver oil,” submitted to me for examination by Professor Davis, of the New York Medical College, I am unable to detect a single trace of iodine. The {77} oil is rank, almost black, and is evidently a mixture of whale oil and linseed oil; in fact it contains no cod liver oil whatever. This article has been sold by a fellow professing to be a druggist and physician.