THE JOURNAL OF PHARMACOLOGY. 1 57 



times into the same rabbit, 18 c. cm. per kilog. of the former induce eclamp- 

 sia, as against 25 c. cm. per kilog. of the latter. If urine be substituted 

 for blood, the figures are 18 and 30 c. cm. per kilog. The author con- 

 cludes from these experiments that pregnancy leads to the formation in 

 the female organism of substances whose 1 principal action is the causation 

 of convulsions, that these substances are normally eliminated by the urine, 

 and that they circulate in the blood to a greater extent in pregnant than 

 in normal animals, indicating in the former an excess of production over 

 excretion. He further finds evidence of the increased susceptibility of the 

 nerve centres during pregnancy, in that for some days after delivery the 

 animal is mora easily convulsed by the injection of blood or urine than the 

 normal, although its own urine is no longer abnormally toxic. Van de 

 Velde hence argues out the whole question of eclampsia, finally accept- 

 ing Bouchard's views as to its cause being auto-intoxication by the ac- 

 cumulation in thci blood of the "toxins of pregnancy." 



Isocreatinine.— J. E. Thesen (Pharm. Ztg., XLIIL, p. 88) has given 

 the name "Isocreatinine" to a newly obtained nitrogenous compound iso- 

 lated from the meat of fish. It differs in many respects from creatinine, 

 described by Liebig. It is yellow, three times more soluble than the latter, 

 and yields an easily soluble picrate. Its metallic salts behave like those 

 of creatinine, giving also the same reactions, although more slowly. It 

 is not altered by boiling with water, but on treatment with potassium pei- 

 manganate it yields considerable ammonia, but no methyl-guanidine, 

 whereas creatinine does. 



New Ferment from the Tartrates.— "Bacillus Tartricus".— L. Grim- 

 bert and L. Ficquet (Chem. News, Number 1,997, p. 106) have made use 

 of an anaerobic fermentation of calcium tartrate, induced by means of a 

 few drops of a vegetable juice, incubated at 35 degrees C. as the starting 

 point of research, and, after a number of cultivations, the authors were 

 enabled to isolate a new bacillus, to which they have given the name 

 Bacillus tartricus. It is a small bacillus, about 1 to 2 u. in length, with 

 considerable motile power; it gives no indol reaction in a peptone solution; 

 it coagulates milk about the eighth day, and transforms nitrates into ni- 

 trites. Bacillus tartricus is an active ferment of calcium tartrate^ which it 

 attacks indifferently in aerobic or anaerobic cultures, but shows a pref- 

 erence for aerobic life. 



