Taking advantage of every possible sales outlet has enabled me to make good in the drug business.

BY WORKING TWENTY HOURS A DAY. BY E. A. PERRENOT.

First let me say, for the benefit of the clerk who is beginning his career in the drug business, that the matter of a proper preceptor is of vital importance. It is quite as important for the clerk to look into the character of the man he is going to work for, the man who will have great influence in shaping his education, the man from whom he will absorb much of his knowledge, as it is for the proprietor to look up the habits and qualifications of the clerk.

It is, in fact, more important, for if the clerk fails to come up to expectations he can easily be fired. But, under the wrong preceptor a young man may go on for years absorbing poor business methods without being aware that he is doing so.

I worked for several such "wrong" men in the beginning of my career; honest men who meant well but who were not a success, and never could be because they were behind the times. When I at last landed a berth in an establishment that was conducted as a drug store should be conducted, it opened my eyes and I realized what valuable time I had wasted. I quickly forgot what I thought I knew, and pitched in to learn the game rightly.

I have reference, of course, to the business end of the drug trade-many druggists who use poor merchandising methods are excellent prescriptionists.

I do not wish to appear egotistical in describing how I apparently made good in the drug business. I have done nothing that can

not be duplicated by any young man who is willing to work as hard as I did. Lots of men have been more successful, but the majority have had some capital to start with. I had saved a little during my clerking days, but just previous to the time that I was approached by a drug broker with a proposition to go into business for myself, I had invested my savings in a modest home intended for my parents.

STARTING WITH FIFTY DOLLARS.

I had about $50, a good position, and no desire to go into business, when this smooth talker showed me what looked like an easy proposition.

It was a small store, which could be rented cheap, with part of the fixtures already installed; also one lonely show-case, and some shop bottles. I fell for it. The store had been closed about two months, and had I taken the time to investigate, I would have learned that the last proprietor was then doing a twoyear term in jail! As I was very young (it was during my last year at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy) my neighbors and prospective customers got the notion that I was running the store for the former owner. That was "some" handicap.

After paying the first month's rent, getting a few necessary utensils and buying as much stock as my limited capital would purchase, I squared away for action. It quite often took some tall figuring to keep a dollar's worth of change in the cash drawer!

From the beginning I made up my mind to discount all bills, and I stuck to my determination. If I had no money to pay cash, I waited until we took some in. The only exception was a small fountain, which I bought at once, on the usual terms. That proved a good investment, and was a big factor in bringing

Other answers,

people into the store-which was what I wanted. After that it was up to me to please the people and make customers of them.

I was fortunate in one way: I owned a printing press and outfit, together with considerable paper. I also possessed a younger brother who, like myself, was not afraid of work.

CIRCULARS BROUGHT TRADE.

Although we had comparatively no stock, we started right in to advertise boldly. We distributed our own circulars, mostly at night after closing, and we tried to make every one bring trade. Those were the days when cut prices counted as much as service, so we cut right and left. We went so far in our game of bluff as to print a small catalogue in pamphlet form, advertising the whole list of "patents" at cut prices, although we did not have ten per cent of the articles listed, and those only in twelfths. But we got results.

When we had a call for anything not in stock we did our best to hold the customer while one of us would hurry out to procure the article from a neighboring druggist-sometimes at a loss.

Although I did not understand the term

THE VOLATILE

"service" as I understand it now, we gave the best service we could, and in time we were rewarded by doing a business that rapidly increased from about three dollars a day to about eighteen. The third year we opened a large new store, about three blocks away, and sold the old one at a fair profit.

Going into any business "on nerve" without capital is a hard proposition. For me it was the hardest work I ever undertook, and I would not attempt to go through it again, I can assure you. Many times we faced failure. We had to hustle to make ends meet.

Not being "bothered" much with prescriptions the first six months, I often left the store in charge of my brother. I tried selling fruit tablets for a candy firm, but could not make shoe leather. Then we tried putting out a few specialties for druggists under their label. I would get a few orders, put them up that night, and deliver the goods the next day while looking for more orders.

We dropped the specialty business when things began to pick up in the store.

I was determined to show that we could make a drug store pay-and I did, although it often meant twenty hours hard work a day.

The volatile principles referred to in this paper are not those preëxisting in the bean, such as caffeine, which is lost in roasting only to the extent of a fraction of one per cent, but those remaining in the roasted material, developed in the process of roasting.

It has been shown that coffee, in roasting, exhibits at least 9 per cent decomposition of organic substances. Much of these that are absorbed or loosely retained cannot be easily expelled. The results of decomposition and destructive distillation of the constituents of green coffee, as stated by investigators, are perhaps as follows:

Carbohydrates yield Furfuraldehyde.

*Read before a meeting of the American Chemical Society, at Urbana, Illinois.

By L. E. SAYRE,

School of Pharmacy, University of Kansas

Fats yield Acrolein.

Tannins yield Catechol, pyrogallol.
Caffetannic Acid yields Catechol.

Proteins yield Ammonia, amines and pyrroles. These products of roasting may also interreact to produce many compounds such as Acrolein+Ammonia-Methyl pyridine.

Methyl pyridine+Furfuraldehyde=Furfural vinyl pyridine.

This latter compound will produce, on reduction, an alkaloid which is toxic, traces of which may be found in the coffee.

As a result of the above facts, many investigators have tried to separate these products of roasting, mainly by steam distillation, and to give them careful examination as to the toxicity of the compounds found.

Bernheimer found hydroquinone, methyl

amine, pyrrole, and acetone. Erdmann has found furfuryl alcohol, mixed phenols, valeric acid, and furfuraldehyde. Catechol has since been identified as being present. Hydrocarbons have been found that point to the presence of pyridine.

Mr. Paul D. Potter, chief chemist for Sprague, Warner & Company, has given us much information upon this subject, and, among other things, has given the following authoritative information on the toxicity of the various substances found in the volatile principles:

Of the phenols, catechol is more toxic than carbolic acid, and pyrogallol is more toxic than catechol. The harmful influence of the pyridine bases increases with the molecular weight. According to Kendrick and Dewar they constitute the toxic part of tobacco smoke, and Williams and Walters have found that B lutidine affects the heart profoundly. Furfuraldehyde is considered to be the deleterious agent in raw spirits and produces a persistent headache in doses of 0.096 gram. Furfuryl alcohol in doses of 0.5 to 0.6 gram per kilo of body weight will kill a rabbit. The symptoms are lowering of the body temperature, diarrhea, and respiratory paralysis. If the nitrites are present, we have in them compounds which, according to Reid Hunt, approach the cyanides in toxicity. The reaction products which may be formed from substituted pyridines (or pyrroles) and furfuraldehyde are of exceeding interest in this connection, for their structural formulæ show them to be closely allied to the highly poisonous alkaloids such as nicotine and coniine.

In considering the toxic influence of these compounds the possible presence of bodies built up by union of the primary decomposition products should not be regarded as far-fetched. It is indeed difficult to account for the presence of pyridine in any other way. Further, although furfuraldehyde is the natural decomposition product of carbohydrates, furfuryl alcohol is the principal furane body in coffee oil. Active reducing conditions therefore exist within the coffee bean during roasting.

It would also be erroneous to conclude that, since the flavor of coffee is due to roasting, all of the decomposition products are necessary to a good product. The flavor is, of course, due to one or more of them, but, since it can be developed by longer roasting at a considerably lower temperature than is customary in commercial work, it does not follow that all of the decomposition products are desirable. In fact, Erdmann claims to have produced the aroma of coffee by heating caffeine, caffetannic acid, and sugar. It would therefore appear that the decomposition products of the proteins and fats are unnecessary and undesirable.

The effects of all these bodies taken together give coffee its toxicity. Burmann distilled coffee with steam and obtained these volatile constituents, which he examined for the physi

ological effect. He supposed he had a pure chemical compound and called it "caffeotoxine." This, however, was proven later by Erdmann to be a mixture of compounds, as before stated.

Burmann's work, which was on treated coffee or that from which the volatile principle had been removed, shows undoubtedly that the injurious effects of coffee are from these compounds. He sums up as follows:

1. From a chemical point of view, treated coffee differs from untreated only in that it contains less of a volatile principle (caffeotoxine).

2. From a physiological point of view, this constituent alone gives coffee its harmful effects.

3. The volatile principle has a reducing action on the hemoglobin; a depressing effect on the blood-pressure; a depressing effect on the central nervous system, disturbing the cardiac rhythm; an action on the respiratory centers causing dyspnea.

4. The treated coffee contains in normal proportions all the elements of ordinary roasted coffee with the exception of a caffeotoxine, of which it contains only about onethird as much.

5. The process mentioned (vacuum treatment or steam treatment) is said to eliminate the toxic substances, but not the other elements (fat, caffeine, etc.).

At the 1914 meeting of the American Pharmaceutical Association in Detroit, a paper, read by the author, stated that we had obtained reactions for pyridine in distillation of coffee, but we were unable to make more than an indefinite statement of this for the reason that, while we had abundant evidence of the presence of pyridine, we had not actually separated it in the pure form.

During the past year in our laboratory we have endeavored to ascertain whether pyridine could be separated in pure form. In the paper referred to, published in the Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association for January, 1915, it was stated that pyridine-like bodies had been shown by a colorimetric method. Since that time, we have endeavored to prove its existence by actual separation. We have succeeded in doing this even from small quantities of the pulverized roasted bean.

The process used consists in heating a quan

tity of finely pulverized coffee in a balloon flask contained in an oil bath at about 175° to 200° and connected to a suitable condenser and a vacuum pump by which a pressure of about 4 cm. of mercury was obtained. This distillate, when made strongly alkaline, yielded unmistakably pyridine.

The yield of this coffee concentrate from which pyridine was obtained, from finely ground coffee, varies. The average amount of distillate collected from roasted coffee was about 50 Cc. per pound of coffee or about 10 per cent. A large part of this distillate, of course, was water, so that what is termed "coffee concentrate" is undoubtedly active physiological principles in concentrated aqueous solution. The percentage of water has not been determined.

It was thought, notwithstanding these results, that possibly pyridine might be due to further decomposition of the powdered coffee when thus treated by distillation rather than that this body preëxisted in the roasted coffee bean.* In order to prove the latter was the case, namely, that pyridine preëxisted in roasted coffee and presumably was the result of its roasting, the following experiment was performed. A few pounds of coffee were macerated for twenty-four hours in dilute hydrochloric acid and then percolated. The resulting percolate was then concentrated, made strongly alkaline, and then steam distilled. From the distillate we recovered pyridine in the pure form.

Having separated the pyridine in its pure form our next effort was to ascertain the toxicity of the combined volatile principles referred to above as resulting from the destructive distillation.

In order to ascertain the physiological activity of the combined volatile principles as contained in the concentrate-the concentrate resulting from dry distillation—this distillate was collected and hermetically sealed in glass ampoules and sent to the laboratories of Parke, Davis & Company, where its toxicity was determined by H. C. Hamilton in the biological laboratory of that firm.

It should be stated that it was necessary to use this method of sealing in glass ampoules as the products, contained in this distillate, de

*It must be admitted that some pyridine is manufactured in dry distillation as in the process of roasting.

"Kg.

"

"

"Kg. 46

To guinea-pigs intravenously, about....1.0
To guinea-pigs intraperitoneally, about.1.0

It should be stated that while coffee contains these principles, it does not necessarily indicate the deleterious qualities some might suppose it may possess. Some people are so nervously constituted that they cannot use coffee, while thousands seem to receive benefit from its use. We should not condemn coffee simply because its toxic principle has been identified more certainly.

Since we know that in the roasting of carbohydrates as well as proteins there is a development of decomposition products, it would seem that the cereal coffee substitutes were not, in every case, free from such products. We have confirmed this experimentally. In our examination of some of the coffee substitutes we find in them the following constituents: caramel, ether extract containing a resinouslike substance showing that in some cases a decomposition stage had been reached, producing empyreumatic material. This resinous extract on distillation with steam yielded an acid-like body, which, in reaction, indicated a phenolic character, such as salicylic acid.

We have known some of these coffee substitute brews to have, when used, a very disturbing effect on the digestive system, giving even more unpleasant disturbances than coffee. These harmful products are due to the decomposition of nitrogenous matter and carbohydrates which are found present in both coffee substitutes, or cereal coffees, and coffee itself. In some of the cereal coffees we have examined, a decoction was found to have an acid reaction. One sample showed the presence of some unconverted starch. It is safe to say some of the coffee substitutes have no more so-called harmless properties than a carefully prepared roasted coffee bean.

THE NEW PHARMACOPIA.

BY WILBUR L. SCOVILLE.

The contents of the Ninth Revision of the Pharmacopoeia will be less novel to many readers than previous revisions, owing to the publicity policy of the committee by which proposed changes have been announced in medical and pharmaceutical journals during the course of the work. And the general appearance of the new book so resembles the U. S. P. VIII in style and type that it may hardly seem like a new work. Yet there are evidences of revision on almost every page, and in certain respects there are radical changes.

THE APPENDIX.

To begin—as does the novel reader at the end, the appendix shows a marked enlargement. This part includes the methods for making chemical and physical examinations of the articles and, like the last chapters of a novel, it is designed to show how the articles. turn out. It is a "dry" story to most pharmacists, and yet it deserves some attention and will arouse some interest because it is the foundation on which all the standards rest.

This part of the book, obscure though it may seem to many, represents the best and most advanced thought of the Committee, and employs the latest established methods in chemical and physical examinations.

The determination of atomic weights is now based upon oxygen 16 instead of hydrogen

=1, which eliminates many of the fractions in calculations, and brings the work into harmony with chemical usage throughout the world. The old basis of H = 1 has gradually given way to O= 16 in most pharmacopoeias

as well as in chemical books and articles.

LIST OF STANDARD REAGENTS ENLARGED.

The list of reagents and test solutions is greatly enlarged, not only to supply the newer reagents, but also because there are more tests demanded for medicinal chemicals than before. Pharmacists who conduct or supply analytical laboratories will be interested in the standard

reagents for urine analysis, blood testing, examination of gastric contents, microscopic stains, and bacteriological culture media, which are now included for the first time under the title "Diagnostic Agents and Clinical Tests."

For the physical tests there are new chapters on sterilization, optical rotation, refraction, melting, congealing and boiling points, electrolytic determinations, solubility methods, standard thermometers, alcohol determinations, specific gravity, etc.; these in addition to the usual tables, the number and variety of which have also been increased.

This appendix now forms, in itself, an excellent text-book on methods of examination and testing for medical and pharmaceutical students, and doubtless will be so used in laboratories and colleges. It contains a large amount of information along these lines which is reliable as well as authoritative, and which will increase the usefulness of the Pharmacopoeia to those engaged in chemical and analytical work.

OFFICIAL ABBREVIATIONS.

Returning to the body of the work, the most striking general addition is that of official abbreviations. Each title which is likely to be used in prescriptions has its official abbreviation. This addition is obviously intended for the use of physicians, but one wonders how much attention they are likely to pay to it. If the abbreviations are used they will relieve the pharmacist of all responsibility in their interpretation—provided of course he interprets them in accordance with the Pharmacopoeia, but if they are not used, the pharmacist's re

sponsibility is as great as ever. The pharmacist, however, must be careful that he does not misinterpret an official abbreviation, for this now carries as much weight as the full title.

And on the contrary, if a physician inadvertently uses an official title or abbreviation when he intends something different, he is responsible. This however is not very likely to occur, because the official abbreviations are made with the intent to avoid confusion or mistakes, and are thus plain in themselves.