THE JOURNAL OF PHARMACOLOGY. n 



Abstracts. 



The Sterilization of Drinking Water. Hygiene is on the eve of 

 discovering an agent by which, says the Roman correspondent ot the 

 Laiicet, the sterilization of drinking water may be effected thoroughly, 

 quickly and economically. The tincture of iodine has been recommended, 

 and certainly succeeds when the bulk of water is not great, and good re- 

 sults have been obtained in the well-known establishment at Lille for 

 "the industrial sterilization of drinking water with ozone." The Ri- 

 vista d'Igiene of Turin, however, has just indicated a " more excellent 

 way" than either of these, to wit, "the sterilization of water by 

 means of the peroxide of chlorine," which, it says, has already obtained 

 a unanimous vote in its favor from the Consultative Committee of 

 Public Hygiene in France. Peroxide of chlorine is a powerful and en- 

 ergetic oxidant, while its action as a bactericide is such that less than 

 three grammes are sufficient to sterilize completely one cubic meter of 

 water— even to destroy the " spora carbonchiosa." "This new Berge 

 process," according to the Rivista, "is very economical, the sterilization 

 of a cubic meter of water costing less than half a centime." Put to the 

 test at Ostend and at Middelkerke, it has yielded quite satisfactory results. 

 One objection, it is true, has been made to it— its action is alleged to be 

 efficacious only in the case of "drinking water not very impure. Further 

 experiment must give the reply to this ; meanwhile Professor Henri Berge 

 (lecturer on chemical technology at the Brussels Polytechnic School) and 

 M. Albert Berge have succeeded in eliminating all danger of explosion 

 in the preparation of peroxide of chlorine, which they obtain by treating 

 at about 107° C. chlorate of potash with sulphuric acid. Moreover, in 

 the Berge process the water, after having been treated with peroxide of 

 chlorine, must be passed over coke, which detains whatever trace of the 

 oxide has remained in it. Every possible source of mischief is thus elim- 

 inated, and, as the Rivista believes (while not accepting the process as 

 free from all objection), we are now in presence of a sterilizing agent which 

 promises what public hygiene has long desiderated— a perfectly pure, in- 

 nocuous drinking water. 



Chemistry of Gall-stones. In contradiction of the theories of Naunyn, 

 the author, Thudichum (Virch. Arch. Bk., 156, p. 384) declares, as a re- 

 sult of his investigations, that bilirubin is not a constituent of normal 

 human bile. The coloring matter of human gall-stones is bilifascin. 

 The gall-stones of both men and animals, as a matter of fact, contain in- 

 gredients which are only found in the bile after its decomposition. He 

 further denies that the mucous glands of the gall-bladder participate in the 

 production of gall-stones. 



