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THE AMERICAN

JOURNAL OF PHARMACY.

JANUARY, 1889.

THE HUNGARIAN DAISY AS AN ADULTERANT OF INSECT POWDER.

BY G. M. BERINGER, A. M., PH.G.

Read at the Pharmaceutical Meeting, December 18th.

A short time ago, there was received in New York a consignment, consisting of a number of bales of these Hungarian Daisies. They were entered at the Custom House as insect flowers and were evidently intended as a sophistication of the Dalmatian Insect Powder. In the course of business, a sample of these flowers was submitted to the writer.

The similarity in size and general appearance to the flowers of the Dalmatian powder, would easily deceive the careless or unguarded observer. On close inspection, however, with a microscope of ordinary powers, the differences in the botanical structure are such as to render the distinction between the whole flowers comparatively easy. But as they will, probably, in future importations, be mixed with the genuine, which, usually, as imported in bales, are very much broken up, they will prove a dangerous adulterant, one difficult to determine, and if in the powdered article most likely beyond detection.

The Dalmatian Insect Powder has proven so superior to the Persian powder, that it has driven the latter almost entirely out of the market. It is said to be the most valuable product of Dalmatia and is now imported in very large quantities. As imported, it is usually adulterated with the ground stems and leaves of the plant. The latter being cut down at the end of the season, dried, ground and mixed with the ground flowers in the proportion of one to three or four of the flowers. This accounts for the fact, that the whole flowers are

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