328 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



THE PREPARATION OF COLLODION FOR SUKGICAL PUEFOSES. 



For this purpose Ilofmann introduces one part of cotton wool into a mix- 

 ture consisting of twenty parts of the strongest nitric acid, and thirty parts 

 of sulphuric acid, for a quarter of an hour. The operation should be con- 

 ducted in a glass vessel with a cover, and the cotton stirred frequently by 

 means of a glass rod. The cotton is then well washed, to remove the last 

 trace of acid, and pressed strongly in a linen cloth, and before being dried it 

 should be pulled, to sepai-ate the knotty portions. The cotton should now 

 be dried in a sieve over a stove Six parts of the cotton thus prepared are 

 dissolved in a mixture of one hundred and twenty parts of ether and eight 

 parts of rectified spirits of wine, to which three parts of castor oil are finally 

 added. Hofmann states that this collodion does not crack or contract like 

 that prepared in the usual manner. London Lancet. 



ETHER AND CHLOROFORM GELATINIZED. 



Professor Rusponi has succeeded in turning ether and chloroform into 

 gelatine, by shaking them with white of egg in a closed receiver. The com- 

 pound obtained with the ether is semi-transparent ; with the chloroform it is 

 white and opaque. This gelatine is soluble in water, and may be spread on 

 linen in the form of a poultice. It will likewise mix with morphine, canthari- 

 dine, conicine, &c., and may thus become of great therapeutical use. 



DESTRUCTION OF VERMIN BY ANAESTHETIC AGENTS. 



The following is an abstract of a paper read before the Paris Academy, by 

 M. Doyerc, on the destruction of vermin by ancesthetic agents applied par- 

 ticularly to the case of insects, or larvae, in wheat. 



Experiments have been made at Algiers on the most extensive scale with 

 these objects, especially to ascertain their effects on cereals. It was ascer- 

 tained that two grammes of chloroform, or, a sulphurate of carbon per 

 metrical quintal of wheat, was sufficient to destroy, in five days' time, all the 

 insects in wheat ; while with five grammes of sulphurct of carbon per metri- 

 cal quintal, the destruction takes place in twenty-four hours. The mass of 

 grain operated on, so far from being a difficulty, rather simplifies the opera- 

 tion. Experiments were made on 11,600 hectolitres of barley at once ; one 

 hundred pounds of the sulphuret of carbon was used, which required twenty 

 minutes to introduce into the mass. These operations maybe made success- 

 fully even when the heap of grain is simply covered with a water-proof cloth, 

 which is closed with clay near the ground on every side. The grain operated 

 on retains all its germinating properties. The fetid odor of the sulphuret of 

 carbon is soon dissipated ; and after it has been exposed two or three days to 

 the air, and moved occasionally with a shovel, no trace of it remains. The 

 grain so treated, when ground and made into bread, cannot be distinguished 

 from grain which has not been exposed to the influence of anaesthetic agents. 

 Animals ate the barley, while it was still fetid, with such an appetite and avi- 



