32 



THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



sumed, only hydrochloric acid can be de- 

 tected in place of free chlorine. More- 

 over, they attribute the well-known pre- 

 servative action of alcohol in chloroform 

 to this fact. Mr. Brown {Pharm. Jour. 

 Tra7is., 1893, 321) takes exception to 

 these statements and declares them to be 

 contrary to his experience. He con- 

 cludes that the preservative action of al- 

 cohol must be ascribed to some other 

 cause and that it is folly to arrest decom- 

 position altogether in chloroform by the 

 excessive addition of alcohol. Without 

 doubting in the least degree, Mr. Brown's 

 statements that pure chloroform to which 

 0.077 P^^ cent, of alcohol had been 

 added, decomposes when exposed in 

 colorless glass to direct sunlight — Dr. 

 Squibb(£)!'/^(?»2. , Jan. , 1894) calls attention 

 to his experience that pure chloroform to 

 which 0.625 P^^ cent, of alcohol had been 

 added, in ground-stoppered bottles of am- 

 ber glass, has kept for at least ten years 

 without any trace of decomposition. 



One of the most recent tests in detect- 

 ing decomposing chloroform is that pro- 

 posed by Prof. W. Ramsey (see U. S. P.. 

 1890) in the use of baryta water. Mr, 

 D. B. Dott has not found this, however, 

 to be satisfactory. Mr. Brown relies 

 wholl)^ upon the zinc-iodide and starch 

 test in detecting the first signs of decom- 

 position in chloroform. He also says 

 that by increasing the quantity used for 

 the foreign odor test and diminishing the 

 quantity of sulphuric acid to 10 percent, 

 in the acid test, that a very large quantity 

 of impure chloroform is detected which 

 by the usul methods of testing would 

 pass into consumption. The two latest 

 novelties in the domain of chloroform are 



those of Pictet and Anschutz. The former 

 freezes out the impurities of chloroform. 

 The latter produces a homo-salicylid- 

 chloroform. It seems questionable as to 

 whether these chloroforms are any better 

 than a good quality of the commercial 

 article. 



THE MOST RECENT WORK. 



E77ietine in Ipecacuayiha. — C. C. Keller 

 examined a quantity of ipecacuanha root 

 from Rio Janeiro and found the best to as- 

 say between 2.7 and 2.9 per cent, of eme- 

 tine. Only the poorer qualities assayed 

 less than 2 per cent. He maintains that 

 pharmaceutical preparations should be 

 made from ipecac, assaying, at the mini- 

 mum. 2.5 per cent, of alkaloid. — Chem. 

 Zeit., 1894, 9. 



Antiseptic Value of Ozone. — ^J. deChrist- 

 mas {A)i?ial. de /' Inst. Pasteur, 1893, 

 VII., 689) finds that ozone added to air 

 in the proportion of o. i per cent, by 

 volume, possesses antiseptic properties 

 as there is a cessation in the develop- 

 ment of the spores of pathogenic microbes 

 on the surface of objects exposed to this 

 gaseous mixture. But so soon as the 

 proportion of ozone falls below o. i per 

 cent, all antiseptic action ceases. It 

 thus follows that ozone is impracticable 

 for use in the disinfection of houses and 

 hospitals. Because, on the one hand, 

 the practical difficulties in the produc- 

 tion of ozone in sufficient quantity has 

 not been overcome. And, on the other 

 hand, the air becomes unfit for respira- 

 tion long before it is saturated with 

 ozone to the degree required. Hence all 

 appliances and "ozoni.sers" recommended 

 for disinfection depend upon an errone- 

 ous assumption. 



Iridin in Iris floretitiria. — G. de Laire 

 and F. Tiemann (^Ber. d. Cheni. Ges., 

 1893, 2010) obtained on extraction of the 

 roots of Iris florentina, a glucoside iridin, 

 Co^HooOis, which crystallizes in white 

 needles, melts at 208'' and turns yel- 

 low in the air. On heating with dilute 

 sulphuric acid it splits into glucose and 

 irigenin, CigHjeOg. This latter, with 

 strong alkalies, yields iridic acid and 

 a phenol, iretol, CeH2(OH)3.0 Me 

 [=2:4:6:1]. 



