The extract obtained from this drug appears, in ordinary doses, perfectly inert, five or ten grains producing, when swallowed, no effect whatever. Is this root employed for the purpose of obtaining its extract, and is this latter sold as genuine extract of Jalap?

Of the effect which frauds of this kind cannot fail to have on the practice of medicine it does not fall within my province to speak, but commercially its working is sufficiently obvious. One hundred pounds of Jalap at the market price, 60 cents per pound, will cost $60. In extracting this there will be employed about $5 worth of alcohol, making in all $65. There will be obtained forty pounds of extract, costing thus $1 621⁄2 per pound.

One hundred pounds of false Jalap, No. 1, may be obtained for $20; admitting the alcohol to cost $5, it will make in all $25. This will produce thirty-six pounds of extract, costing rather less than 70 cents per pound.

One hundred pounds of variety No. 2 may be had for $20, and no alcohol is necessary in obtaining the extract. The yield being seventy-five pounds, the extract will cost rather less than twenty-seven cents per pound.

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VIRGIN SCAMMONY, WITH SOME RE­MARKS UPON THE CHAR­AC­TER­IS­TICS OF SCAM­MO­NY RE­SIN. BY B. W. BULL.

The more extended use in medicine which this substance has acquired within a few years, and its consequent greater consumption, render the knowledge of its peculiarities and the modes of ascertaining its purity doubly important to the druggist and apothecary.

An instance occurred a few weeks since, showing the necessity of careful and thorough examination of every parcel of this drug, and possessing some interest, from the fact that no description of any similar attempt at falsification has, I believe, been before published.

The commercial house with which I am connected, purchased a parcel of what purported to be virgin scammony from the importer, who obtained it direct from Smyrna. A sample of it was examined and found to contain seventy per cent. of resinous matter, but when the whole lot was received, it was found to consist evidently of two different grades of the article.