— 79 — 



A fatal case of poisoning owing to the inhalation of turpentine 

 oil vapours is reported by A. Drescher 1 ): a workman who varnished 

 in a sugar works the interior of an iron vessel used for inverting sugar, 

 died in consequence of the inhalation of turpentine vapours. Any 

 other cause of death, such as suffocation by carbonic acid, heat stroke, 

 genuine paralysis of the heart, poisoning by lead or arsenic, or intoxi- 

 cation by another poisonous or narcotic substance producing paralysis 

 of the heart, is out of the question. As another workman had, previous 

 to the one who died, been instructed to varnish the vessel, but had 

 become so unwell, owing the the vapours of the varnish, that he was 

 compelled to give up the work, the air in the vessel (which had a 

 cubical content of only 132 cub. ft.) must have been so saturated 

 with turpentine oil vapours, that the second workman who had already 

 become unwell but had in spite of this resumed the work, died of 

 the excessive inhalation of the vapour. — This would be the first 

 fatal case of turpentine oil poisoning known, assuming of course that 

 the varnish contained pure turpentine oil. But the death of the 

 man may possibly be attributed to some other constituent of the 

 varnish. 



Oil of Umbellularia californica. As already reported by 

 us on a previous occasion 2 ), Power and Lees had made a thorough 

 study of the oil of Umbellularia californica Nuttall, and they had then 

 already succeeded in isolating a fraction which consisted chiefly of a 

 ketone C 10 H 14 O to which they gave the name umbellulone, and 

 about which further details have also been given by us. In a publication 

 by F. Tut in 3 ) now before us, some derivatives of umbellulone and 

 above all its constitution are discussed. On oxidation, umbellulone 

 yields a saturated keto acid C 9 H 14 3 , m. p. 102 , umbellulonic acid, 

 which on distillation under suitable conditions is converted partly into 

 the already described unsaturated lactone C 9 H 12 2 , b. p. 218 to 

 221 , which on hydrolysis again results in umbellulonic acid, and with 

 loss of water is formed from the enol-modification of the keto acid. 

 On oxidation the lactone yields a remarkably stable polymethylene 

 dicarboxylic acid, umbellularic acid C 8 H 12 4 , m. p. 120 to 12 i°, which 

 is not attacked even when boiled for ten hours with fuming nitric 

 acid. When brominated, umbellulone yielded, in addition to the solid 

 dibromide of the m. p. 119 , the liquid monobromo' umbellulone 

 (b. p. 140 at 20 mm. pressure), and also a fraction boiling at 130 

 (20 mm. pressure), which on distillation over sodium yielded p-cymene. 

 This shows that the umbellulone molecule is capable of passing over into 



*) Concordia 13 (1906), 141. 



2 ) Report October 1904, 87. 



3 ) Journ. chem. Soc. 89 (1906), 1104. 



