Experiments with the pressure cooker in drug extraction††This work was made possible by the award of a fellowship to S. J. Greco by The American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education.

✦ Synopsis

Studies of the individual drug extractions were made, and it was concluded that nux vomica tincture, belladonna tincture, hyoscyamus tincture, stramonium tincture, cascara sagrada fluidextract, and wild cherry syrup could be made successfully by the pressure cooker method of extraction. Ipecac fluidextract, ginger fluidextract, and nux vomica fluidextract which would conform to the official standards could not be made by this method. The principal advantage of this method is the fact that there is a considerable saving of time. It was concluded that by the pressure cooker method, tinctures of official quality could be made from the alkaloidal drugs, especially those of the Solonaceae family.

EW IDEAS pertaining to new methods of extraction of vegetable drugs have been advanced in recent years. Bay and Gisvold (1) and King and Gisvold (2) have performed extraction studies on digitalis, using the Waring

Acute and Chronic Toxicity of Veratrum V

Acute and Chronic Toxicity of Veratrum Viride††The Veratrum viride studied was the whole-powdered drug marketed by Irwin, Neisler & Co. under the name, Vertavis. The work reported herein was supported by a grant from this firm. The batch of powder used in these experiments was stated by the manufacturer to have been assayed biologically by the Craw method on Daphnia magna. One Craw unit of the material studied was stated to be 15.6mg. With regard to this assay, Mr. R. O. Craw has been so kind as to allow us to publish a brief explanation: A reference lot of Yerolrum oirid; powder was set-aside as a standard and a 10% w/v aqueous extract was made of this powder. The average median length of life in 50 assays of 1000 daphnia on immersion in the solution was determined to be 2.22 hours. The daphnia were considered dead when the heart was found to be in systolic standstill on microscopic examination. Succeeding lots of powder were assayed and their potency determined by relating the median length of life of daphnia to 2.22 hours, which is one unit. Twenty assays of 10 animals each were used on each lot of powder.‡‡The authors wish to thank Dr. J. F. A.,McManus of the Department of Pathology for a pathologic report on the tissues, and Mr. James Thomas and Mrs. Bobby E. Teague for technical assistance.

✍ Perdue, Adoline S. ;Bell, Frances ;Starnes, W.R. ;Hitchcock, Philip ;Teague, R.S 📂 Article 📅 1950 🏛 Elsevier ⚖ 346 KB 👁 1 views