ANESTHETIC AGENTS. 
307 
subject, has very lately advocated amylene , which, he says, 
produces semi-consciousness and complete insensibility to 
pain. Amilen, or amylene, belongs to the amyle compounds, 
the analogue to which we have both in the ethyle and 
methyle series; the two last named being obtained respectively 
from sugar and wood — the first from potatoes. The com- 
pounds derived from these organic substances differ but 
little from each other in their relative constitution, the ele- 
ments being alike in all. 
Catalytic or fermentative action being induced in sugar 
or the potato, the elements of the one or the other unite in 
other forms, and give rise to an alcoholic fluid ; and as a 
similar one results when wood is subjected to destructive 
distillation, the parallelism is thus rendered obvious. The 
metamorphosis that takes place may perhaps be better un- 
derstood by observing that carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, 
are the ultimate elements in all ; and these combining in dif- 
ferent proportions, give rise to the different kinds of alcohol, 
or spirit, as it is designated. 
The composition of 
Alcohol obtained from Sugar is . . . C 4 lf 6 0 2 
„ „ „ Wood . . . C 2 H 4 0 2 
„ „ „ the Potato . . C, 0 H 12 O 2 
The bases of these are Ethyle (C 4 H 5 ), Methyle (C 2 H 3 ), 
Amyle (C 10 H U ). 
Amylic alcohol is formed in considerable quantities during 
the manufacture of brandy from potatoes. Balard found it, 
accompanying cenanthic ether, in the volatile oil procured 
from ordinary brandy ; and Brande says it has been detected 
in the spirit afforded by the fermentation of beet root treacle, 
and that it is abundantly obtained from corn-spirit, in the 
process of rectification upon the large scale. It has been 
long known by the name of oil-of-potato spirit. The Germans 
called it fusel-oil. When potato-brandy is distilled, and 
after the greater part of the alcohol has passed over, a milky 
fluid results, which deposits this crude oil. This is to be 
washed with water, dried by means of chloride of calcium, 
and re-distilled at a temperature between 260° and 280° F., 
when the alcohol occurs in the form of a colourless liquid, 
having a peculiar nauseous and suffocating odour, and an 
acrid taste. It inflames with some difficulty, yielding a pale- 
blue flame. Its specific gravity is *812 at 60°, boils at 270°; 
at 4° is a crystalline solid. Density of its vapour, 3T4. It 
undergoes but little change by contact with air under ordinary 
circumstances ; is sparingly soluble in water, but dissolves in 
all proportions in alcohol, ether, and the fixed and volatile oils. 
