case. When subsaturation occurs, white and odorless crystals are with difficulty obtained; the difficulty is lessened by increase in the proportion of alkali used, and when this is in excess vanishes entirely. While the difference between phenolic phenolic and natural salicylic acid may be so slight as to elude detection chemically, one may still exist. We can detect no difference in the composition (so to speak) of ordinary and amorphous phosphorus, yet the yellow is highly poisonous and the amorphus comparatively devoid of toxic power, and in samples of salicylic acid, all made from true oil of wintergreen, the details of production must largely influence the result.

Another point should be noticed, the low price of very handsome oil of wintergreen. The price of oil of wintergreen in open market is (if my memory is not at fault) no higher than that ruling twenty years since, when the oil was in limited demand. Coupling this with the fact that methyl alcohol of excellent quality can be obtained at bed-rock prices and phenol-salicylic acid at poor man's rates, it is evident that the manufacturers of o. w. salicylic acid must be cautious in the matter of bargains in crude stock. The uses of salicylic acid, both medicinally and industrially, have not been accorded the notice they deserved, but the limit of this paper will not permit more than the consideration of its chemical status. Even this is very imperfect, and can be viewed only as a practical statement of the considerations that have led the writer to believe that for the present, at least, a rigid line of demarkation should be drawn between pheno-salicylic and gaulthero-salicylic acids.

Dr. T. L. A. Greve: "I wish to make a remark with reference to the paper read. So far as the remarks of Prof. Forbes are concerned, warning us against the acceptance of synthetic products for the natural products, I think he is right. There is a difference between them. This difference exists also between the phenol salicylic acid and the natural or wintergreen salicylic. But in its therapeutic action, I think it must be remembered that the accumulated experience of physicians recorded in our books, has undoubtedly reference to the phenol salicylic acid, and when a physician speaks of his experience with the acid,

he undoubtedly refers to the phenol acid. If the action of the two is not the same, then the wintergreen acid may have new properties, and we should use caution how we substitute this for the phenol acid.

Prof. Kolbe, who has been referred to with reference to the process of manufacturing this acid from carbolic acid, was the first to bring this subject into notice. The high priced article then as obtained from the oil of wintergreen is perhaps therapeutically not as good as phenol salicylic acid, at least we do not know that it is as good. I make this remark, not because I wish to depreciate the product of salicylic acid makers-I make it myself-but because I wish the truth to be known in regard to the two products."

Prof. J. U. Lloyd remarked:

In connection with this subject it is stated by Mr. Forbes that when salicylic acid is made from the oil of wintergreen by the action of a caustic alkali, methyl alcohol is produced. In order to investigate this point, I took fifty pounds of the oil and digested it in a closed stone still with a proper amount of water and caustic potash, expecting to derive from it salicylic acid and considera. ble methyl alcohol. The result was that I did not get an ounce. I was surprised, but I thought there was something wrong with my experiment, and that there must be some mistake in the way I made them, but the result was afterwards the same, salicylic acid without any alcohol. I have also noticed that the odor evolved in making salicylic acid from wintergreen oil is not that derived from the methyl alcohol of commerce which has a tear exciting odor which must be due to impurities. I did not notice this peculiar sensation imparted by the commercial product, doubtless owing to the fact that pure methyl alcohol does not have these properties. This is one point that occurred to me in hearing the paper. Another is in regard to making salicylic acid from the commercial wintergreen oil. At the meeting of the American Pharmaceutical Association at Washington, in reply to a query on that subject, Mr. G. W. Kennedy, who has long been a resident of the birch and wintergreen oil producing country, reported that more than 40 per

cent. of the wintergreen oil is made from the birch and not from the wintergreen plant. The last Journal of Pharmacy contains a thesis by Mr. J. E. Leonard, which gives an analysis of these two products, and it was found that the oil made from the birch contains a little terpin while the oil of wintergreen is free from this substance. Another point in making salicylic acid from wintergreen oil, some use caustic potash and some caustic soda. In working with these two substances there is a difference, for instance, dissolve a little caustic potash in water and warm to a temperature of 180° F., pour into it a little wintergreen oil, there will be an effervescence, the order of wintergreen disappears and a solution remains. Use a solution of caustic soda in the same way, a granular mass results and several hours will elapse before a solution is made. I believe that much is yet to be learned about making salicylic acid. There are in my opinion bye products that have not as yet been identified. In my boyhood days it was my pleasure to become familiar with the odor evolved from willow bark on the Ohio river willow plantations, where tons of willow bark is cast into heaps by the willow strippers. The first batch of salicylic acid that I made from wintergreen oil, carried me back to those days and the willow bark of years ago. There was no mistake, that familiar odor, and I have but to close my eyes now when making wintergreen salicylic acid to imagine myself once more among the willow strippers. Has any mention ever been made of the principle that gives this odor?

EXTRACT OF MALT AND ITS MANUFACTURE.

BY JOHN L. IRWIN, PH. C.

In a recent communication from the editor of one of our pharmaceutical journals, reference was made to the fact that while many plans for testing a genuine extract had been submitted by the different manufacturers, yet their process of manufacturing had not been published. Prompted by the suggestion, it occurred to the writer that a detailed description of the process of its manufacture on a large scale would be of interest to the members of this Association, and hence he has prepared the following paper on the subject :

It may seem to those inexperienced in the manufacture of extract of malt, that it is quite easily prepared, so simple are the formulæ given in works of reference, but the experience of the writer justifies him in the assertion that all such formulæ, that of the U. S. P. not excepted, are defective and of no practical value for the manufacture of a genuine extract on a large scale. The nature of one of the constituents of a good extract is such as to require its preservation from the time the grain is first moistened to the time the extract is completed, and it is on this point that the process given in the U. S. P. and other standards is practically defective.

In order to transfer the diastase from the malted barley unchanged, a menstrum should be used which preserves it in its journey from the grain to the finished extract. The following plan devised by the writer, is the result of several years experience in the manufacture of malt extract, and while I cannot refrain from the assertion that experience alone can qualify the operator in securing the best product, yet the plan presented will, if faithfully carried out, serve as a guide.

APPARATUS USED.

For the manufacture on a large scale two principal kinds of apparatus are in use, viz.: the hot air blast and the ordinary vacuum apparatus,

the latter being the one with which the writer is more familiar. It includes an air-tight copper still, a cooler, a receiver or air-chamber, and a good air pump, capable of producing a twenty-seven inch vacuum. There are also required a thermometer, wooden wash tub, wood percolator, a good press, platform for dampening the malt, and the necessary buckets, dippers, etc.

TO MAKE MALT.

Where the operator has the proper facilities for malting his own barley, the following directions will, I think, meet the requirements.

Take a convenient quantity of newly threshed barley, place it in a trough nearly full of water, and allow it to steep until the water is of a bright red color, which will be in about three days, more or less, according to the size and dryness of the grain, the season of the year and temperature of the air. In summer malt does not make well; in winter it requires a longer steeping than in autumn or spring. It may be known. to be steeped enough by other marks besides the red color of the water, as by the excessive swelling and softness of the grain if it be oversteeped, being, when in right temper, like the barley prepared to make broth. When sufficiently steeped, take it out of the trough and pile it in heaps, so as to let the water drain off; then, after two or three hours, turn it over with a shovel and lay it in a new heap about two feet high. This is called the "coming" heap, and in its proper management lies the principal skill. In this heap it may lie about forty hours, according to qualities of the grain, before it comes to the right temper, and it must be carefully watched during the fifteenth and sixteenth hours, about which time the grains begin to put forth shoots, which, when they have equally and fully done, within an hour of which the malt must be turned over with a shovel, otherwise the grains will put forth the blade and spire, which must be by all means prevented. If all the malt grains do not come equally, but those in the center, being warmer, come first, the whole must be turned so that the inside is outside, and so on, until it is all alike. When the malt is sufficiently "come," turn it over and spread it to a depth not to exceed five or six inches, and by the time it is all