18 PHYSIOLOGY [Bot. Absts. 



122. Wilcox, R. B. Cranberry disease investigations in New Jersey during 1918. Proc. 

 Ann. Meet. Amer. Cranberry Growers' Assoc. 49: 15-21. 1919. — See Bot. Absts. 2, Entry 

 303; 3, Entry 90. 



PHARMACEUTICAL BOTANY AND PHARMACOGNOSY 



Henry Kraemer, Editor 



123. Cltjte, W. N. The money in drug plants. Amer. Bot. 25: 15-20. 1919.— Prices of 

 crude drugs are regarded as too low to make the growing of drug plants in the United States 

 profitable. A list of the North American official drug plants is given with the price and part 

 used indicated. — W. N. Clute. 



124. Hotson, J. W. Sphagnum from bog to bandage. Publ. Puget Sound Biol. Sta. 2: 

 211-247. PI. 31-48. March, 1919. — The whole detailed process of making surgical dressings 

 of Sphagnum is given. This includes the collecting, storing, baling, sorting and drying. The 

 equipment of a workroom for the purpose is given in detail. It is written from a war emer- 

 gency standpoint, and with a view to preserving valuable facts about Sphagnum possibilities 

 learned through war stress. — T. C. Frye. 



125. Hotson, J. W. Sphagnum as a surgical dressing. 31 p., 18 fig. Published inde- 

 pendently by the Northwest Division of the American Red Cross: Seattle, undated [1918]. — 

 It is a general account of the discovery of the utility of Sphagnum for surgical dressings, its 

 pre-war surgical use, and the utilization of it in the early years of the world war. Instructions 

 are given as to where and how to get the moss and how to make the dressings of it. A table 

 of absorbency of 6 species from various regions is given. Written primarily as a war emer- 

 gency paper to be used as a guide in the making of Sphagnum dressings. — T. C. Frye. 



126. Macht, David I. A pharmacological appreciation of a Biblical reference to mass 

 poisoning, II Kings IV, 38-41. Bull, of The Johns Hopkins Hospital 30: 38-42. Fig. 1-2. 1919. 

 — The Biblical passage is an account of the accidental poisoning of a band of prophets and the 

 antidotal means employed by their leader, the prophet Elisha. The plant that caused the pois- 

 oning was called Paqqu'dt and the antidote was meal. The derivation of the Hebrew name is 

 given and it is shown from both the botanical and archaeological histories that it applies 

 rather to the Wild Colocynth, Citrullus Colocynthis than to the Squirting Cucumber, Ecbal- 

 lium Elaterium. Both plants are illustrated and described and the active constituents of 

 each named. Both plants are powerful drastic purgatives, and in overdoses are dangerous 

 poisons, producing enteritis and even death. To test the use of meal as an antidote, experi- 

 ments were carried out on dogs. A striking primary symptom is profuse salivation which will 

 account for the exclamation of the prophets, on eating their pottage, of which the wild Colo- 

 cynth was a part, that there was death in the pot. The flour or meal rendered the otherwise 

 poisonous and lethal doses of the plants under disoussion, innocuous, substantiating the truth 

 of the Biblical passage and sustaining the popular first aid maxim to give flour in many cases 

 of poisonings. — Oliver A. Farwell. 



PHYSIOLOGY 



B. M. Duggar, Editor 

 METABOLISM (GENERAL) 



127. Dienert, F., and A. Guillerd. Milieu a l'eau de levure autolysee pour la culture du 

 B. coli. [Autolyzed yeast water as a culture medium for B. coli]. Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci. 

 Paris 168: 256-257. 1919. — The high cost of peptone for bacteriological work led to a search 

 for a substitute for it. It was found that among the products of the autolysis of yeast are to 

 be found amino acids — tryptophane, etc. — which are also found in peptone. Bouillon made by 

 substituting autolyzed yeast for peptone yielded two billion bacteria per cc. at the end of 24 



