June, 1920] PHARMACOGNOSY 409 



alcohol comes next U> water in being u good solvent for the act IVC principle. (7) Neither abso- 

 lute el hyl alcohol nor .•tinyl alcohol completely removes the active principle from the seeds. — 

 (8) Amyl alcohol completely removes the active principle from the aqueous residue hut not 

 from the seeds.— (9) Chloroform is a very poor solvent for the active principle. — (10) The 

 water-soluble ghiooside 01 gluoosides slow the heart, prolong the period of systole and are 

 non-cumulative.— Part II deals with the determination of the minimum lethal close. The 

 following are the conclusions: — (1) For a frog the oral minimum lethal dose is about twenty 

 times more than that given by intralymphatic injection. — -i'2i The toxicity of Kombe stro- 

 phanthin is practically identical with that of Strophanthin Merck. — In Part III, the assay 

 methods of Barclay, Fromme (1910) and Lampaht and Mueller are stated to have given 

 fairly concordant results, which agreed — within limits — with the physiological standardiza- 

 tion and were satisfactory on the whole. However it was not possible to completely remove 

 the bitter principle by the methods of Frommk, and Lampart and Mueller, which consist- 

 in exhausting the seeds with absolute alcohol. — Experiments for exhausting the de-fatted 

 seeds gave the following conclusions: (1) Absolute alcohol is not a good solvent for the active 

 principle present in the seeds. — (2) The lower the percentage of alcohol, the more rapid is the 

 removal of the active principle. — (3) A lower percentage of alcohol than 65 per cent, though 

 it extracts the bitter principle more rapidly, produces an unsightly tincture which is hard to 

 filter. — (4) Water alone is unsuitable, since the aqueous tincture decomposes very quickly. 

 — (5) The best method to prepare a tincture, on a large scale, is to employ slow extraction 

 with 65 per cent alcohol in a long narrow percolator till the seeds are free from bitterness. 

 The resulting tincture may be diluted with 65 per cent alcohol, if necessar}', to bring it to the 

 official standard, as determined by chemical and physiological assays. — E. N. Gathercoal. 



2808. Steenhauer, A. J. Bijdrage tot de kennis van het geslacht Polygonum. [Con- 

 tribution to the knowledge of the genus Polygonum.] Pharm. Weekblad 56: 1084-1101. 16 fig. 

 1919. — A microscopical and phytochemical study of several species of Polygonum. The fol- 

 lowing characteristic formations were found. — P. aviculare L.: (1) striate cuticle on upper 

 and lower epidermis; (2) margin of leaf revolute. — P. bistorta L.: (1) striate cuticle on borders 

 of cells of upper epidermis; (2) monocellular, furrowed, conical hairs on margin of leaf and 

 on lower epidermis. — P. convolvulus L.: at margin of leaf are short monocellular, conical hairs 

 with furrowed cuticle. — P. dumenlorium L. : leaf with hairy margin. — P. Hydropiper L.: 

 schizogenous secretion canals in epidermis.— P. nodosum L.: long, cotton-like hairs on upper 

 and lower epidermis. — P. persicaria L., P. amphibium L. and P. lapathifolium L. : multicel- 

 lular conical hairs on margin of leaf and also scattered on upper and lower epidermis. — P. 

 mite Schrk. and P. minus Huds. : multicellular conical hairs on margin of leaf. — Some species 

 erf polygonum contain oxymethylanthraquinones and a method for estimating these is given. 

 P. convolvulus L. contains 0.025 per cent; P. dumentorum L. contains 0.02 per cent; P. sachal- 

 inense Schmidt 0.08 per cent in the leaves and 0.03 per cent in the stems; P. Seboldii Hort. 

 0.02 per cent. — H. Engelhardt. 



2809. Van Wisselingh, C. Bijdragen tot de kennis van de zaadhuid. Vierde bijdrage: 

 Over de zaadhuid der Cruciferen. [Contribution to a knowledge of seed-coats. Fourth con- 

 tribution: On the seed-coats of the Cruciferae.] Pharm. Weekblad 56: 1246-1271. 2 pi., IS 

 fig. 1919. — A report on the microscopical structure of the seed-coats of five species of the 

 Cruciferae: Matthiola incaua R. Br., Cheiranthus Cheiri L. (Arabideae), Brassica nigra Koch, 

 Sinapis alba L. (Brassiceae) and Corhlearin ojficianias (Alyssineae). It was found that in the 

 seeds the two integuments and the innermost integument and the nucellus are separated in 

 the beginning of the growth by cuticles. The cuticle between the integuments disappears 

 during the development of the seed and in some species this takes place also with the cuticle 

 between the innermost integument and the nucellus. In most cases this cuticle remains and 

 indicates in the ripe seed the boundary between seed coat and endosperm. In the cells which 

 form the innermost cellular layer and the outermost seed coat, always a cork tissue is devel- 

 oped. This also takes place in the cells of the innermost cellular layer of the innermost seed 

 coat and in this case the cuticle between the seed coat and the nucellus disappears. In the 



