R: R: azeotropic: was Hep. C

[Guest guest]

Hi Rodney,

<<you certainly can't expect to remove any significant

amount of alcohol from a tincture simply by adding a quantity of boiling

water. You need to keep supplying heat. <snip>

The question is how long do you keep heating?

Thirdly, it's important to consider what you're doing to the constituents of

the tincture when you heat them. Some may be unstable (e.g., they may

hydrolyze), and some may evaporate off to some extent with alcohol.>>

I agree. I have to say I felt a bit weird in talking about azeotropic

mixtures in this context. : - ), it seems too technical for the subject

matter. It is probably true that the method (boiling water plus stirring)

does not represent a viable way to get rid of alcohol if the problem is a

serious one (allergies, alcoholists, hepatitis, babies), but maybe is still

a a decent

advice to give routinely (perhaps for differet reasons: the patients feels

that at least part of the alcohol is leavng, and I find my patients

generally prefer warm medicines to cold ones). But I do not give thisa

dvice with delicate constituents like volatiles.

Well, at least I refreshed my distillation technique.

Cheers

Marco Valussi

marcobabi@...