— 9 2 — 



practice in the form of an injection in a 15 to 20 per cent, solution. 

 Injections of 10 per cent, aqueous solution with glycerin are, however, 

 less painful. 



Thymol. It has no doubt been a surprise to everyone interested 

 in the manufacture of this article, that, according to the new German 

 Customs Tariff, the crude material, i. e. the ajowan-seed which is 

 quite unsuitable for consumption, and which was formerly free of duty, 

 has now been taxed with an import duty of 4 marks per 100 kilos, 

 and has therefore been included among the so-called spice-seeds, such 

 as anise, fennel, caraway, etc. Why this has been done, is inexplicable 

 to the expert, because, as ajowan-seed is exclusively worked up for 

 thymol, and for this purpose is admitted free, and is moreover a 

 tropical product which cannot be grown in Germany, the duty on it 

 will not bring in a single penny, and it would have been better if it 

 had been left duty-free. 



The prices of ajowan-seed in India remain firm at about 11/- per cwt; 

 our heavy old stock was still bought at 8/-, so that we were able to 

 avoid the high quotations of last year. 



According to S chill 1 ), thymol is a good remedy against gnats. It 

 is used in the form of a solution of thymol in 50 per cent, alcohol 

 (2 : 100) which is rubbed on the hands, neck, and face by means of 

 a cotton wool pad or a piece of woollen rag. This keeps the gnats 

 away. Against stings it is recommended to make a paste of bicar- 

 bonate of soda and water and apply it to the sting, or to carry it 

 about in a saturated solution and dab it repeatedly on the sting. It 

 is, no doubt, a matter of general knowledge that bicarbonate of soda 

 applied in the same manner, also gives excellent results in slight burns. 



Vanillin. Jos. Hanus 2 ) reports on the quantitative estim- 

 ation of vanillin in vanilla extracts. He employs as a suitable 

 reagent for the estimation of vanillin in vanilla, vanilla goods, and vanilla 

 extracts, m-nitrobenzhydrazide, by means of which, in aqueous solution, 

 all the vanillin is precipitated quantitatively. This method is recom- 

 mended particularly for this reason, that its exactness does not suffer 

 even from the presence of the ordinary adulterants, such as acetanilide, 

 benzoic acid, sugars, or salicylic acid. It is, however, useless if other 

 aldehydes are present, especially piperonal, whose presence in vanillin 

 can be detected by bromine water, with which piperonal rapidly forms 

 needles with a silken lustre. 



*) Schweiz. Wochenschr. f. Chem. u. Pharm. 1905, No. 24, accord, to Pharm. 

 Centralh. 47 (1906), 15;. 



2 ) Zeitschr. Untersuch. der Nahrungs- und GenuBmittel 10 (1905), 585 to 591. 

 Accord, to Chem. Centralbl. 1906, I. 89. 



