THE LATEST REFORM IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. 385 



plex of separate buildings, where it would have been at liberty to 

 develop and expand according to its wants. Surely, the sump- 

 tuous new Sorbonne of to-day, which in spite of its huge dimen- 

 sions is infallibly bound to prove too small a few vears hence, 

 will be burdened with a galling reproach that shall never be 

 silenced : the murder of the Sorbonne of Richelieu. Then, again, 

 there are no longer any sound reasons why the Ecole normale 

 supdrieure and the Ecole des hautes Etudes should not be con- 

 sidered to be colleges or institutions of the University of Paris. 

 These schools and the facultes of letters and of sciences have, 

 to a large extent, the same staff of masters and the same students ; 

 the same spirit is henceforth to reign supreme in the establish- 

 ments, which are part of the "corps universitaire " and in those 

 which are not. So, if it is easy enough to see the advantages of 

 eventual union, one wonders, what its inconveniences could pos- 

 sibly be. But what do these slight blemishes signify, in com- 

 parison with so vast a number of unquestionable boons and 

 benefits? And will not the criticisms lose their raison d'etre and 

 die out as years go by, whereas the benefits will prove permanent 

 and lasting? Really, the methodical creation of its universities 

 will for ever and ever remain one of the most sterling claims which 

 the governments of the third Republic possess, to the universal 

 gratitude of the nation. 



L'essentiel dans I'^ducation, ce n'est pas la doctrine enseignde, 

 c'cst r&ueil.jf 



BUPHANE DISTICHA.— This poisonous bulb, whose 

 physiological action and chemical properties were nreliminarily 

 investigated by Muller in the Grahamstown Laboratory in 1903 

 (Rep. Senior Analyst C.G.H., 1903, pp. 63-65) has recently been 

 exhaustively examined by Tutin in the Wellcome Research 

 Laboratories, and an account of the investigation appears in the 

 June issue of the Journal of the Chemical Society (pp. 1 240-1 248). 

 Tutin confirms Muller's finding that the bulb contains a non- 

 crystalHsable alkaloid, and proposes to name it Buphanin. 

 Muller found the physiological action of the plant to be that of 

 a convulsant coupled with a secondary tendency to bring about 

 respiratory failure. This too is now confirmed, the twofold 

 action being ascribed to the presence of at least two distinct 

 alkaloids. One of these has been identified as narcissine, the 

 alkaloid of the daffodil. The amorphous buphanine is changed, 

 by heating with alcoholic potassium hydroxide, into a crystalline 

 base, for which the name buphanitine is suggested. During the 

 course of the investigation acetovanillone, previously discovered 

 only in Apocynum cannahinum and A. androsaemifolium, was 

 found to be contained in the bulb. The plant, which is indi- 

 genous to South Africa, is well known in the Eastern Districts 

 of the Cape Province, where deaths have frequently been caused 

 by it, as "gift bol," and is one amongst many indigenous plants 

 on which investigations had been commenced in the laboratories 

 at Grahamstown without opportunity being found for carrying 



such Investigations to finality. [ 



tRenax : " Souvenirs d'enfance et de jeunesse." 



