640 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS IN CHEMISTRY AND PHARMACY. 
§ 6. Provincial Atom is a little unfair in his mode of dealing with my con¬ 
cluding paragraphs. Had I anticipated so serious a criticism, I might perhaps 
have been more cautious in my forms of expression. But I see no reason to 
withdraw my statement that heat, light, etc., are motion. 
Some of these misunderstandings arise from the unfortunate use of the same 
word to signify both cause and effect. 
When I say that heat is motion, I intend, of course, to imply that the pheno¬ 
mena which we attribute to a something we usually call heat, are the effects of 
a particular hind of molecular movement • that is to say, we apply the term 
heat to this movement; it is only another name for it. I see no more impro¬ 
priety in this, than in the commonly received opinion that compound bodies 
contain and are built up of simpler bodies which we call elements; and yet we 
have no more evidence of this than that by associating the elements together 
under suitable conditions, we get compounds, and by suitably treating*these 
compounds, we again get elements. I should, perhaps, have been plainer, had 
I said, heat is one kind of molecular motion, light another, electricity a third 
kind, and so on. 
But the reasoning Provincial Atom imputes to me can only be paralleled by 
such as the following :—• 
Red, yellow, and blue are colours. Then, since things which are equal to the 
same thing are equal to each other, red, yellow, and blue are the same. 
William A. Tilden. 
NOTES AND ABSTRACTS IN CHEMISTRY AND PHARMACY. 
The Employment of Bisulphide of Carbon in Pharmacy. 
M. Lefort has been making experiments upon the employment of bisulphide 
of carbon in the preparation of what he calls “ sulpho-carbonic extracts ” of 
medicinal plants. Since moisture opposes a certain obstacle to the solvent 
action of the sulphide of carbon, he first dries the powdered vegetables at a 
temperature of about 50° to 60° C. He then exhausts the dry powder by ma¬ 
ceration with several quantities of the sulphide successively applied, decanting 
and filtering the solution obtained. The exhausted vegetable powder retains 
about half its volume of the liquid, which can be recovered by distillation. 
The tincture obtained is distilled by means of a water-bath, the residue being 
freed from the last traces of sulphide of carbon by heating gently in the open 
air.. When this has been entirely expelled, the odour peculiar to the plant is 
distinctly apparent. 100 grams of dry powdered leaves of digitalis, belladonna, 
henbane, stramonium, aconite, and conium have given quantities very nearly 
approaching to 3 grams in each case; but, if we consider that the plants lose 
during desiccation three-fourths of their weight, we may conclude that the 
fresh leaves contain no more than 75 per cent, of principles soluble in bisul¬ 
phide of carbon. 
In all these extracts four chief constituents have been found:—1. A fatty 
matter, apparently identical in the several cases. 2. Chlorophylle. 3. An 
odorous principle differing with each vegetable. 4. One or more organic bases 
in the condition of the salts contained naturally in the plants. The presence of 
the alkaloids can be rendered evident by their action upon animals and by 
various reagents, such as iodhydrargyrate of potash or tannin. The purpose for 
which the author designs these extracts is the manufacture of medicated oils, a 
class of preparations scarcely ever used in this country; but his memoir is 
interesting, as illustrating the applications to which this most valuable solvent, 
bisulphide of carbon, is capable of being adapted. These “ sulpho-carbonic 
extracts ” would be worth trying in the preparation, for instance, of certain of 
