HO 



Scientific Proceedings (99). 



valuable piece of work on the action of chinosol alone, and in 

 combination with salt, on blood corpuscles. 



The merits of chinosol in combination with salt as a tissue disin- 

 fectant can be summarized as follows: Its stability, its ease of 

 application, its applicability to first-aid treatment of wounds, its 

 tendency to dry up pus, its non-irritability when applied in ac- 

 cordance with the technic here advocated, unless possibly after 

 prolonged use; also the facts that it appears not to attack tendons 

 and that it facilitates the separation of sloughs. 



The full scientific treatise on this subject will be published 

 shortly in the Annals of Surgery. 



63 (1438) 



The detection of small amounts of chloral in the presence of 

 chloroform and formalin embalming fluid. 



By Alexander O. Gettler. 



[From the Chemical Laboratory of the Pathological Department of 

 Bellevue Hospital and that of the Chief Medical 

 Examiner of The City of New York] 



During the past five years the organs of many cases in which 

 death was due to toxic substances, were submitted to complete 

 chemical examination in this laboratory. Practically all of these 

 were examples of sudden death occurring in the five boroughs of 

 Greater New York for which the chief medical examiner or the 

 medical assistant to the district attorney or both could find no 

 anatomical cause. There were also a number of cases which were 

 brought to my attention from other states. In this number, most 

 of the commoner poisons, including chloroform, were represented. 

 I have yet to encounter a case of straightforward chloral poison- 

 ing. Nevertheless, I became greatly interested in the question 

 as to whether some of the so-called chloroform poisonings might 

 not have actually been examples of chloral poisoning, and there- 

 fore, I made a study of various reactions to determine this point. 



The several tests, namely, the isonitrile, the resorcin, the orcin 



