lvi GENERAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



tive oxalyl-urea (parabanic acid). Considering this body as 

 acid oxalate of urea minus two molecules of water, and oxa- 

 luric acid as the same salt less one such molecule, it seemed 

 easy to produce the former from the latter. Oxaluric acid 

 heated to 200 with phosphoryl chloride yielded a substance 

 in crystals having when purified all the properties of oxalyl- 

 urea. The author proposes to drop the term parabanic acid. 



In Physiological Chemistry the progress of the past year 

 has been notable. Terreil has analyzed the bones of the fos- 

 sil human skeleton found by M. Riviere at Mentone. The 

 phalanx of the foot yielded : phosphate of calcium, 56.76 ; car- 

 bonate of calcium, 25.00 ; water, 11.68; nitrogenous organic 

 matter, 4.07 ; phosphate of magnesium, 1.71 ; ferric oxide, 

 0.06; silica traces; total, 99.28. The spongy, internal mass 

 of the calcaneum yielded : calcium carbonate, 64.33 ; calcium 

 phosphate, 17.12 ; silica and ferruginous clay, 8.31 ; water, 

 6.37 ; organic nitrogenous matter, 2.40 ; magnesium phos- 

 phate, 0.60; total, 99.22. 



Wibel has criticised Aeby's conclusions as to the existence 

 in bones of a polybasic phosphate. He shows that when 

 bone phosphate is ignited, the carbonic acid which it loses 

 is not resupplied to it on subsequent treatment with ammo- 

 nium carbonate. These results he explains by the supposi- 

 tion that under these conditions a slightly basic phosphate 

 is formed. He is therefore of opinion that the mineral con- 

 stituents of bones are tricalcic phosphate and calcium car- 

 bonate. Weiske and Wildt have experimented upon the ef- 

 fect produced on the bones of young animals by feeding them 

 on food deficient either in phosphoric acid or lime. Lambs 

 under these circumstances decreased in weight and became 

 diseased. Their bones weighed less than normal bones, but 

 they contained the normal quantity of phosphoric acid and 

 lime. Weiske himself has studied the effect of madder when 

 mixed with the food in coloring the bones. Rabbits from six 

 weeks to six months old, being fed with bran mixed with five 

 per cent, of powdered madder, showed the reddening first at 

 the point of ossification of the intermediate cartilage of the 

 femur, after three days. After 28 days' cessation of the mad- 

 der the color had but slightly diminished. The cartilage 

 left on treating the colored bones with hydrochloric acid was 

 colored, but the calcium phosphate precipitated from the so- 



