112 PHARMACOGNOSY ' [BoT. Absts., Vol. X, 



PHARMACOGNOSY AND PHARMACEUTICAL BOTANY 



Heber W. Youngken, Editor 

 E. N. Gathercoal, Assistant Editor 



(See also in this issue Entries 383, 388, 434, 503, 543, 553, 752) 



720. Anonymous. Export of Buchu leaves. Pharm. Jour. 106: 459. 1921. — Exports 

 decreased from 204,271 pounds, the average for 1910-1914 inclusive, to 130,101 pounds, the 

 average for 1915-1919 inclusive. In 1909 the Cape Town average price per pound was 8 pence; 

 in 1919, 5 shillings. In 1920 the best grade reached 11 shillings per pound. The world demand 

 for Buchu leaves and oil is increasing and marked interest is being taken in the cultivation of 

 the plant. Extensive experiments on a commercial scale are being carried on at the National 

 Botanic Gardens in Kirstenbosch. — E. N . Gathercoal. 



721. Anonymous. Note. Nature 106: 321. 1920. — Reference is made to an article by 

 Willmot and Robertson in the Lancet for Oct. 23, regarding an outbreak of Senecio poisoning 

 in South Africa in 1918. This, which is probably the first instance in man, was traced to 

 toxic seeds of Senecio ilicif alius and S. Burchelli in wheat. Similar diseases have long been 

 known in farm animals, and 2 toxic alkaloids, senecifoline and senecifoldine were isolated by 

 H. E. Watt in 1911 from S. latifolius. This raises the question of the possible occurrence of 

 the disease in Europe from S. jacobcea, which causes disease in sheep in Nova Scotia. Careful 

 cleaning of wheat before milling probably makes risk negligible. — 0. A. Stevens. 



722. Baudys, E. Die Sporen der Getreidebrandpilze sind nicht giftig. [Grain smut 

 spores are not poisonous.] Zeitschr. Pflanzenkrankh. 31 : 24—27. 1921. — The question whether 

 spores of grain smut, including Tilletia tritici, are poisonous has often been asked, and as 

 often answered, — but rarely satisfactoril3^ Chickens experimentally fed for 7 weeks with an 

 amount of smutty grain such as would never be encountered in ordinary practice grew well, 

 gained in weight, and showed no ill effects. Mice and rabbits behaved the same. The 

 author then relates experiments conducted on himself in which he consumed considerable 

 quantities of spores of stinking smut contained in biscuits without injurious influence on his 

 health. The records of poisonous effects of Ustilago longissima on Sweet Grass by Eriksson 

 and Sorauer led to the belief that this smut caused injury. Kopke insisted that intoxication 

 corresponded to the ingestion of the fungi. The poisoning, the author explains, is not due to 

 smut spores, but to certain glucosides present in the young plants of Sweet Grass, just as in 

 sorghum and other grasses. The content of glucosides varies with climatic influences and 

 ecologic and local factors. — H. T. Giissow. 



723. Davies, Edward C. The assay of colchicum by the phosphotungstic method. 

 Pharm. Jour. 106: 480-481. 1921. — The drug is exhausted with alcohol, the alcohol recovered, 

 the colchicine taken up with water, shaken out with chloroform, again dissolved with hot 

 water, and precipitated as phospho-tungstate, from which the colchicine is liberated by alkali 

 and chloroform. The great advantage of the method lies in the purity of the resulting alka- 

 loid. — E. N. Gathercoal. 



724. Haas, Paul. On the nature and composition of Irish moss mucilage. Pharm. Jour. 

 106: 485. 1921. — Commercial Chondrus crispus yields to cold water a mucilaginous substance 

 whose properties differ from those of the product obtained by a subsequent extraction with 

 hot water. Emulsions of cod liver oil made with the dialysed cold-water extractive are much 

 less stable than when made with the dialysed hot-water extractive. A cooled 5-per cent solu- 

 tion in hot water of the hot-water extractive forms a stiff jelly melting at 41°C. suitable for 

 solid culture media. The gelatinizing power is not affected by prolonged boiling or autoclave 

 sterilization, but is destroyed by heating in the presence of acid. The cold-water extractive 

 forms only liquid mucilages. — E. N . Gathercoal. 



