296 RECOBD OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



the sugar thus obtained not giving a trace of precipitate with cupro- 

 potassic tartrate, the rotatory power being p = -)-73°'8 at 15° C. 

 The residue is then evaporated to dryness and redissolved in alcohol 

 at 90° C ; twice the volume of ether is then added to precipitate the 

 remainder of the saccharose ; the solution contains a mixture of 

 glucose and levulose. If this is now treated with chalk, the insoluble 

 calcium levulosate can be separated from the soluble calcium gluco- 

 sate ; the addition to the former of oxalic acid separates the levulose 

 in the form of an insoluble viscous sugar ; and glucose can be ob- 

 tained by a similar process. The crystals of saccharose and glucose 

 are readily distinguishable under the Microscope. 



Effects of Starvation on Vegetable and Animal Tissues.* — 

 Surgeon D. D. Cunningham has studied the effect of jxartial or total 

 dej)rivation of food on two mucorine fungi, Clioanepliora and Piloholus, 

 and on the tadpoles of two batrachians, Btifo melanostictus and Rana 

 tigrina. The method adopted was to place the organism under 

 examination in freshly distilled water. 



In all cases the effect of starvation was fatty degeneration, fol- 

 lowed by total disintegration of the protoplasm. This was observed 

 in the hyphfe and the spores of the fungi, and in the epidermic and 

 epithelial cells, blood-corpuscles, nuclei of adenoid tissue, and 

 amoeboid wandering cells of the tadpoles. The effect was most 

 marked in the epithelial cells of the alimentary canal, which in an 

 advanced stage of starvation were found to be entirely destroyed. 

 When this took place, the alimentary canal was of course deprived 

 of all i^ower of absorption and secretion, and recovery was rendered 

 impossible. 



The post-mortem examinations made by the author showed that 

 a similar fatty degeneration and disintegration of the alimentary 

 epithelium was a marked symptom in the fatal cases of starvation 

 during the famines in India. It was found that patients coming to 

 the relief camps in an advanced stage of starvation, but with no 

 active symptoms of disease, were almost certain to die of famine- 

 diarrhoea and famine-dysentery, brought on by the irritation produced 

 by the unaccustomed supply of food on the abraded sm-face of the 

 intestine. 



Composition of Chlorophyll. — Since the publication of Hoppe- 

 Scyler's note on the composition of chlorophyll,! the subject has 

 attracted much attention among French chemists and botanists. 

 M. Gautier J brought before the notice of the Academy of Sciences at 

 Paris some researches of his, carried out in 1877, in which he claims 

 to have separated crystalline chlorophyll in a state of purity. The 

 crystals are in the form of flattened needles, often radiating, about 

 0*5 cm. in length, soft, of an intensely green colour when fresh, 

 afterwards becoming yellowish or brownish green. They belong to 

 the oblique rhomboiilal system, the rhombohedron having an angle of 



* See 'Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci.,' xx. (1880) p. 50. 



t See tliis Journal, atifc, p. IIU. 



X ' Comptea Keudus,' Ixxxix. (1879) p. 861. 



