NOTES AND ABSTRACTS IN CHEMISTRY AND PHARMACY. 
641 
the plasters, since they are all easily miscible with fatty matters. Bisulphide 
of carbon might be employed with advantage to replace ether in certain cases, 
as well as in such an instance as the following, given by M. Lefort:—Camomile 
flowers contain two odorous principles, the one volatile, the other fixed, but 
which are both very soluble in bisulphide of carbon. An extract of the flowers 
can easily be made by first bruising them in a mortar, without drying, and then 
exhausting as in the other cases. 5 per cent, of semisolid extract is obtained, 
which unites all the properties of the camomiles. 
M. Lefort employs maceration ; probably in many cases percolation would be 
fouud to answer better. 
Purification of Bisulphide of Carbon. 
The bisulphide of carbon of commerce would require to be purified to render 
it fit for such purposes as those detailed above. The process given by M. Cloez 
would probably be one of the best. The crude bisulphide is shaken up with 
one two-hundredth of its weight of perchloride of mercury, and allowed to 
stand. A precipitate is formed, which carries down the substance which gives 
to the ordinary article its fetid odour. After twenty-four hours’ standing, the 
supernatant liquid is poured off from the deposit, and distilled by the heat of a 
water-bath from a flask, into which has been first introduced a small quantity 
of an inodorous neutral fat. The object of this is not stated, but it probably 
removes the last traces of the odorous compound. The bisulphide of carbon 
thus treated is a very volatile, limpid, colourless liquid, with an odour not dis¬ 
tantly resembling that of chloroform. 
Strychnine an Antidote to Chloral. 
Dr. Liebreich, the discoverer of the therapeutic action of chloral, has been 
seeking, and announces that he has found the antidote to this powerful agent. 
He first of all established the fact that chloral diminishes the effects of 
strychnine, provided it is given very promptly after the exhibition of the 
poisonous alkaloid. 
A much more important result has been obtained in another series of experi¬ 
ments which Dr. Liebreich made subsequently to this, and which had for its 
object to demonstrate the effect of strychnine upon animals poisoned by fatal 
doses of chloral. The following is an apparently conclusive experiment:— 
Two rabbits received each 2 grams (about 30 grains) of chloral. After half 
an hour both were in a condition of profound narcotic sleep ; the muscular 
relaxation was such that they appeared as if dead, the respiration being feeble 
and slow. A milligram and a half (less than one-fortieth of a grain) of nitrate 
of strychnia was injected into one of them. In ten minutes after this operation 
the respiration began to resume its activity, the animal moved when irritated, 
but there were no convulsions ; the muscles recovered their tonicity ; when the 
feet of the animal were drawn out he drew them in again. Two hours after¬ 
wards the rabbit was sitting up, and four hours after the injection he was com¬ 
pletely restored to his usual condition. The other rabbit, on the contrary, 
'which had not received any strychnine, was dead two hours and a half after the 
administration of the chloral. 
A third rabbit, to which no chloral had been given, but only 1-| milligram of 
nitrate of strychnine, died ten minutes after in violent tetanic convulsions. 
Nothing similar was manifested after the injection of the strychnine into the 
rabbit which had previously received some chloral. 
It results from these experiments that strychnine, administered after an 
excessive dose of chloral, cuts short and destroys the effect of the latter, and 
that without producing its own characteristic action. Dr. Liebreich proposes 
to make use of injections of nitrate of strychnine in accidents produced by an 
overdose of chloral or chloroform .—Comptes Renclus , k 2\st February. 
