THE ALUMNI JOURNAL, 



179 



requires the presence of water to decompose the 

 bicarbonate. In the recent edition of the U. S. 

 Dispensatory is to be found, note on page 1270. 

 a synopsis of a process given by Dunstan and 

 Dymond for making nitrite of ethyl in the cold. 

 The operation is a pleasant one, because the re- 

 sults are singularly true to theoretical calcula- 

 tion. The process is identical with that of the 

 U. S. P., except that the ether is produced at a 

 temperature of 0° C. or lower, and no distilling 

 apparatus required. The facility with which 

 nitrate of ethyl will form at this temperature 

 readily explains many of the faults of the official 

 process, and, in the hands of some ingenious 

 pharmacist, suitable apparatus could be invented 

 and an easy-working process elaborated. (A.mer. 

 Pharm. Assoc. Meeting, Sept., 1894 ) 



Bragantia zvallichu, R. Br.—h. shrub (N. O. 

 Aristolochiaceoe) of India and Malaya. The 

 roots are light brown in color, knotted and 

 twisted, about one inch in diameter at the thick- 

 est part, and tapering. The cortical portion is soft 

 and corky. The substance of the root is tough 

 in consistence. The odor of the bruised root is 

 terebinthinate and the taste nauseously bitter. 

 'a transverse section of the root shows a rather 

 remarkable appearance. There are no very 

 evident concentric z^nes in the wood, b"t it 

 is broken up in a radiating manner into thin 

 wedge-shaped masses extending in some in- 

 stances from the cambium to the centre of the 

 root. There is no proper pith and the paren- 

 chymatous system is distributed in alternating 

 layers with the wedge-like bundles of wood 

 like exaggerated medullary rays. Wood cells 

 are long and yellowish brown. Parenchyma 

 contains'] a large quantity of starch almost 

 white in color. 



Its constituents are a soft neutral resin, 

 golden-brown color, giving a reddish-brown 

 solution with sulphuric acid. A golden-brown 

 resin acid. The resinous bodies are not anal- 

 ogous to aristolochin found in several species of 

 Aristolochia. It also contains an alkaloid 

 giving a greenish -red solution with sulphuric 

 acid, a yellowish one with nitric acid, destroyed 

 the red color of potassium permanganate and 

 afforded a crystalline acetate. The alkaloid is 

 probably allied to arislolochine, the source of 

 bitterness in certain plants of this order. A 

 substance related to dulcite was also present. — 

 David Hooper in Pharm. Jour. Trans , 1894, 

 231. 



Preventing of Bumping in Liquids. — V. 

 Gernhardt (Ber. d. Chem. Ges., 1894, 964) im- 



proves upon Beckmann's apparatus by replacing 

 the platinum with enamel alone. The author 

 noticed that while using the improved Beck- 

 mann apparatus when the platinum wire is 

 sealed by means of the new Jena enamel that the 

 boiling took place not from the platinum rod 

 itself, but from the red enamel. Beckman 

 originally introduced a piece of platinum wire 

 into the botton; of the flasks, the function of 

 the platinum being to promote a steady ebulli- 

 tion in the liquid by disturbing the chemical 

 equilibrium at one point by partial superheating 

 and thus preventing superheating throughout 

 the whole mass. 



Camphor as a Reagent for .Sw^-ar.— Neitzel 

 (Deutsch Zuckerind, 1894, 254,) recommends 

 camphor instead of alpha-naphthol as a re- 

 agent for sugar. Camphor will detect the 

 smallest quantities of sugar in commercial in- 

 vestigations and is not like alpha-napthol af- 

 fected by the presence of small quantities of 

 nitrates. 



NOTES HERE AND THERE. 



It is reported that the manufacture of sugar 

 of milk is abandoned in New Jersey. We also 

 note in the new Tariff bill a reduction of duty 

 on the same from eight cents to five cents. We 

 wonder if there is any relationship between 

 these two statements. 



Tooth- Ache Bush. — A common name applied 

 in various localities to Aralia spinosa, L. and to 

 various species of Xanthoxylum Recently the 

 Editor received from J. M. Pringle a specimen 

 of so-called "tooth - ache bush" collected 

 on the Sea Islands off of South Carolina- 

 It consisted of a few pinnate leaves; seven 

 leaflets, the rhachis being quite prickly. These 

 characters with the crenate margin of leaflets 

 and the peculiar aromatic and acrid taste prove 

 it to be the Xanthoxylum carolinanum. Lam. 

 (now X. clava herculis, L,.). This species is 

 known as the "prickly ash" of the Southern 

 States G. H. Colton {Amer. Jour. Pharm., 

 18S0, igi) subjected the carefully identified bark 

 to proximate examination. He obtained besides 

 the fixed and volatile oil (the latter in a very small 

 quantity ) a little tannin, a crystallizable and an 

 acrid resin, a small quantity of a yellowish, 

 amorphous, very bitter substance which he 

 believed to be alkaloidal in its characters (it 

 seems to differ from berberine, being soluble in 

 alcohol and water, insoluble in benzine, ether 

 and chlorform and becomes purplish brown 

 with sulphuric acid and bright red, changing to 



