TWENTY-THIBD ANNUAL MEETING. 59 



Solution No. 2 is the official Liquor Sodse Chloratfe of the U. S. P., and should be 

 added to No. 1 in small portions, as stated above. In preparing this solution, add 

 more sodium carbonate if the calcium is not all precipitated. 



In repeated operations I obtained 89 to 91 per cent, of the hypothetical amount of 

 iodoform, which is equivalent to the same percentage of the iodine employed. The 

 mother liquor contains 2 per cent, of the iodine as iodides, which leaves about 8 per 

 cent, to be accounted for. We think by proper adjustment of the solutions the 

 above 2 per cent, can be recovered as iodoform, and we are also of the opinion that 

 the 8 per cent, mentioned exists as iodoform dissolved in the mother liquor. 



Electricity. — Seeing statements to the effect that iodoform could be produced by 

 electralizing solutions of the iodides with acetoneor aldehyde receiving a continu- 

 ous stream of COa, and the accompanying statement that if sodium or calcium 

 iodide was used, the CO, was unnecessary. I thought I might be able to take a step 

 toward bringing pharmaceutical preparations into communion with the electric age 

 in which we live. I tried the experiment, and it was a grand success. With five 

 Bunsen cells arranged in series, I was able to produce iodoform from all the differ- 

 ent substances I tried containing iodine either free or in combination as soluble 

 iodides. The precipitate formed slowly and steadily from all but the calcium iodide, 

 from which it was thrown down very rapidly. But on examining the product, I was 

 tempted to call it something like ioclocalioforin to indicate its true composition, con- 

 taining 25 per cent, of calcium carbonate. 



Electralysis of calcium iodide might be a profitable method for the preparation 

 of iodoform, but since I tried it, I maintain that this method would be more consist- 

 ent with the operations of the Physics Department than those of the Pharmaceu- 

 tical. 



ESTIMATION OF VOLATILE OIL IN MUSTARD. 



BY L. E. SAYKE, LAWEENCE. 



The object of this investigation has been to obtain, if possible, a simple 

 method by which to estimate the value of mustard. The elaborate analyses recom- 

 mended by different chemists, by which the various proximate principles of mus- 

 tard are isolated and weighed, take considerable time, and admit of many sources 

 of error. Hassell's method of estimating the volatile oil, by receiving the distil- 

 late from the aqueous mixture of mastard, in ammonia, evaporating, and weighing 

 the crystals of thiosinamin, is apt to give variable results, because of the fact that 

 the volatile oil escapes, to a greater or less extent, through the ammonia, in spite 

 of the greatest care on the part of the operator. 



The important constituents of mustard, it may be known, are sinigrin (myro- 

 nate of potassium), from the black and sinalbin from the white mustard. Besides 

 these they contain ?nyrosin, which acts as an albuminous ferment. When powdered 

 mustard is moistened this ferment acts upon the glucosides, forming volatile oil, 

 sulphate of potassium and glucose as products of decomposition, or fermentation. 



A favorite method of estimating mustard, by some chemists, has been to con- 

 vert the whole of the sulphur contained in the mustard into sulphates by the action 

 of nitric acid, and to estimate the sulphate by use of barium chloride, deducting from 

 the total sulphates the amount of inorganic sulphates found in the ash. 



It occurred to me that there might be a means by which mustard might be esti- 

 mated by distillation of the volatile oil into some solution containing a substance 

 which would unite with the sulphur or compound of sulphur so readily that none of 



