In 1930 the statement was made “At present there is no method sufficiently delicate to determine quantitatively the amount of cocaine present in the anterior chamber as it arrives from the conjunctival sac after clinical instillation.”1Recently, a method2 was developed whereby cocaine can be quantitatively recovered from body fluids. The essential features of this method follow:To the deproteinized fluid supposedly containing cocaine, is added 1 cc. of a 1% solution of phosphomolybdic acid in normal sulphuric acid. After mixing and centrifuging, the precipitate is washed with water which, after another centrifuging, is decanted and discarded. One cc. of N/5 sulphuric acid, 1 cc. of 2% aqueous solution of hydroquinone, and after shaking, 1 cc. of carbonate-sulphite solution are successively added to the precipitate. This develops a color which is read in the Duboscq microcolorimeter against a standard prepared by adding the above reagents to 1 cc. of a solution of approximately equal alkaloid content.With ...
Read full abstract