NOTE ON PODOPHYLLIN. 
183 
cited Act, to make or mix methylated spirits, to mix in the Customs warehouse, and 
under such conditions and regulations as the said Commissioners shall direct, foreign or 
colonial rum of not less degree of strength than twenty per cent, over proof, and in a 
quantity not less at one time than the contents of the whole cask in which the same 
shall have been imported, with not less than one-ninth of its bulk measure of wood- 
naphtha or methylic alcohol, or with such other article or substance as in the said re¬ 
cited Act is mentioned ; and thereupon such mixture shall be allowed, chargeable only 
with the reduced or differential duty hereinafter mentioned, for use for such purposes 
and in such manner as is allowed by the said recited Act, or any Act amending the 
same, with regard to methylated spirit: provided that no such rum shall be so mixed 
as aforesaid until payment shall have been made to the said Commissioners of Customs 
of the difference between the duty of Customs chargeable on the importation of such 
foreign and colonial rum respectively and the duty of Excise chargeable on spirits dis¬ 
tilled in the United Kingdom. 
2. All wood-naphtha or methylic alcohol, or other such article or substance as afore¬ 
said, to be mixed with such rum, shall be provided by the Commissioners of Inland 
Revenue for and at the expense of the person proposing to make such mixture, and the 
said mixture shall be denominated methylated spirit, and shall be removed, under the 
certificate of the proper officer of Customs, to some approved store belonging to a rec¬ 
tifier of spirits or to a licensed maker of methylated spirit. 
3. All the powers, provisions, clauses, regulations, forfeitures, pains, and penalties 
contained in the said recited Act and in the Act passed in the twenty-fourth and twenty- 
fifth years of her Majesty’s reign, chapter ninety-one, in relation to methylated spirit, 
shall be applied and put in force with respect to all spirits mixed under the provisions 
of this Act. 
4. It shall be lawful to export any methylated spirit mixed under the provisions of 
this Act or of the said first-recited Act, under such regulations as the Commissioners 
of Customs or Inland Revenue shall respectively make in that behalf. 
NOTE ON PODOPHYLLIN. 
BY JOHN M. MAISCH. 
The resin of mandrake, as it is met with in commerce, is very variable in appearance : 
its composition varies in accordance with the mode of its preparation. 
Prof. F. F. Mayer mentions in his paper, published on page 97 of the present volume, 
that podophyllum contains berberina.* I can corroborate this statement, having pre¬ 
pared it from the mother-liquor, from which the resin is subsided. 
When the alcoholic tincture is evaporated to a syrupy consistence, and poured with 
continual agitation into a large quantity of cold water, the sediment after drying will be 
found of a light-brown colour, and to contain the above alkaloid, which may be removed 
by repeated washings with hot water, during which process, however, the preparation 
darkens considerably. If the syrupy residue is precipitated by hot water, the resin will 
separate and fuse at once into a dark-brown cake, which is almost free of berberina, a 
small portion dissolved in the mother-liquor being mechanically enclosed by it. 
The mother-liquor has an acid reaction, and from it the berberina may be obtained by 
concentrating it and precipitating muriate of berberina by an excess of muriatic acid. 
The mother-liquor from this precipitation is still of a yellow colour, which is due pro¬ 
bably to some colouring matter of an acid nature. The muriate of berberina may be 
purified in the usual manner by dissolving in alcohol. 
The resin separating from hot water, settles pretty rapidly, but from cold water it sub¬ 
sides with difficulty, because, most likely, of the slow separation of the native salt of 
berberina ; but if muriatic acid be added, to a certain extent, the liquor becomes clear in 
a short time, since the salts of this vegetable alkali are insoluble in mineral acids. 
Resin of podophyllum prepared in this way is of a pale greenish-brown colour. 
It is obvious then from these statements that the so-called podophyllin may, according 
to the mode of its preparation, contain no alkaloid, a small portion of the native salt, or 
a larger proportion of muriate of berberina, and that its action upon the animal economy 
must be modified at least to a certain extent. 
* See also Pharm. Journ. vol. iv. p. 517. 
