AN

ÉPHEMERIS

OF

MATERIA MEDICA, PHARMACY,

THERAPEUTICS

AND

COLLATERAL INFORMATION.

JANUARY, 1882.

BY

EDWARD R. SQUIBB, M. D.

EDWARD H. SQUIBB, S. B., M. D..

CHARLES F. SQUIBB, A. B.

BROOKLYN, N. Y..

MATERIA MEDICA, PHARMACY, THERAPEUTICS,

AND COLLATERAL INFORMATION.

VOL. I.

JANUARY, 1882.

No. 1.

ANNOUNCEMENT.

An apology may be due those to whom this pamphlet is sent, for even this very feeble attempt at starting a new journal, when the field of journalism is already so well filled. But a promise is made to the readers that if this new journal-undertaken with much hesitation and diffidence-should prove at any time to have no reason to be, it shall at once cease. As being a mere ephemeral waif, it will be sent gratuitously to all. No subscribers are solicited nor any subscription list kept, nor are exchanges with other journals asked for. It may be issued bi-monthly, or quarterly, or irregular. ly, or not at all, as the occupations of an otherwise very busy life may determine; and its chief object is, in an informal way, to note down, from time to time, the results of a long experience and observation and the deductions therefrom, together with occasional original work, as time and opportunity may serve. The contents should be accepted, if at all, as information-not as knowledge;-as material which may be of value only for the moment, or may mature and come to be added to the common stock of knowledge. Ephemerides are things of short life-for a definite or indefinite period, or for the time being, yet they may not be valueless nor be unimportant as elements in the growth of permanent knowledge. Indeed, they must, in their aggregate, bear an elementary relation to more permanent knowledge. An ephemeris of the materia medica, pharmacy and therapeutics seems to be a very pretentious, ostentatious title, but the subjects are so inseparably related as to form really but one intelligent idea, and that one still incomplete at both extremities.

When such a collective subject has been the business of one lifetime, and becomes the expectancy of two other commencing lives edu. cated with special reference to the subject, it does not seem irrational to hope that information may be given which may be interesting and useful to the medical and pharmaceutical professions, since the subject is the very foundation upon which the utility of these professions to mankind depends. The younger associates in this undertaking may, perhaps, at first do but little of the writing, but they will do much of the work upon which the writing is to be based.

To the professions of Medicine and Pharmacy, then, whatever may be here offered is respectfully dedicated by the writer and his two

sons.

BROOKLYN, January, 1882.

EDWARD R. SQUIBB.

THE STRENGTH OF OPIUM AND THE NEW

PHARMACOPOEIA.

When, in 1848, a law was passed by Congress "To prevent the importation of adulterated and spurious drugs and medicines," a careful examination of authorities seems to have been made in order to fix upon a strength below which Opium should not be admitted into the country, and this minimum strength was fixed at 9 per cent. of pure morphia. From that time to the present, this 9 per cent has been the rule of downward limit for all the United States Custom House examiners, and Opium below that strength has never been lawfully admitted to entry in any Custom House of this country. As the loss of water in drying commercial Opium varies between 17 and 23 per cent., the average loss falls at about 20 per cent., and this is proved to be true by a large experience with the better grades of the drug. Hence Opiums which in the moist commercial condition yield 9 per cent. of pure morphia, when dried and powdered would give 11.25 per cent. pure morphia.

The Pharmacopoeia of 1850 is silent upon the strength of its Opium; but that of 1860 prescribes that the officinal Opium shall not contain less than 7 per cent. of morphia. This was a curious mistake to make by so high an authority, for if no Opium could lawfully get into the country which contained less than 9 per cent., it had the inferential force of an invitation to unlawful importations.