On Adulteration in Drugs.

Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 22, 1889, Page 536

3. “On Adulterations in Drugs,” by C. Hulke, F.C.S. Abstract. The author stated that some three years ago he was annoyed when carrying out some researches at finding his work rendered useless and the results vitiated by the introduction of matter foreign to the materials he was acting upon, and also properly foreign to the reagents he was then using. He was too busy at that time to investigate the cause of the failure, and the circumstance was forgotten; but last winter it was again brought to his mind through his having to make a quantity of ammonium sulphide, and it was during its manufacture that he became aware of the cause of his former failure—viz., the impurity in the ammonia he had been using. He explained that his object in bringing the matter before the Society was to warn those who might seek to analyse their own ores to test the purity of their reagents, if possible, before using them, or they might possibly find things that were not in the specimen analysed. It was to the impurities of reagents, possibly and probably, that many of the discrepancies in the various analyses were due. The President stated that this subject had frequently given rise to complications in questions regarding poisoning, in law-cases. Mr. Maskell had found, in making preparations for the microscope, that the benzine sold by the druggists was very inferior, and no doubt adulterated. The only brand that could be relied on was Jackson's.