74 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



Among the gaseous products given off during the smoking 

 of good tobacco and cigars, there were found oxygen, nitro- 

 gen, marsh gas, and carbonic oxide, besides the more readily 

 condensible gases and vapors sulphureted hydrogen and 

 hydrocyanic acid, and occasionally # sulphocyanic acid, this 

 case being produced at a later stage by thjs action of sulphur- 

 eted hydrogen on hydrocyanic acid. The acid and non-basic 

 products formed are formic, acetic, metacetic, butyric, valeric, 

 and carbolic acids, creosote, perhaps cyprylic and succinic 

 acids also, the latter from fermentation of the malic acid well 

 known to exist in the green tobacco plant. There are also a 

 solid hydrocarbon and a liquid hydrocarbon of the benzole 

 series. 



The most interesting fact in the inquiry was that no nico- 

 tine could be detected among the basic products of the dis- 

 tillation, proving that the injurious effects of tobacco-smoking 

 are not to be attributed to this substance 5 on the contrary, 

 it was in the alkaloids of the pyridin or picolin series, well 

 known to be produced during the destructive distillation of 

 wood and other vegetable products, that the poisonous influ- 

 ences were found. These were tested upon pigeons and 

 Guinea-pigs, and were found to produce tetanic spasms, irreg- 

 ular action of the heart, and death. The same bases, obtained 

 from other sources than tobacco, produced similar effects. As 

 the same pyridin bases are among the products of the distil- 

 lation of opium, the authors are inclined to attribute the ef- 

 fects produced by smoking this drug, not to morphia, but to 

 the picolin series of alkaloids. 20 A, September 2, 285. 



EEGIANINE. 



According to Dr. Phipson, the English walnut {Juglans 

 reffia), and probably the American species also, contain, 

 among other substances, one which he calls recjianine (ob- 

 tained by treating the green husk of the fruit with benzole), 

 which appears in the form of a yellowish substance crystal- 

 lizing in groups of feather-like crystals. These are easily 

 decomposed, and, when treated with alkalies or ammonia, 

 yield a splendid and durable red solution, which, by a subse- 

 quent treatment, becomes the jet-black, amorphous, pure re- 

 gianic acid. 2 A, September 8, 119. 



