January 13, 1373.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
5C5 
sucked all tlie wounds liimself like a veritable leech 
of the olden time, and made the caste gentry of the 
native force stare in astonishment at this novel ap¬ 
plication of the sacred organ.”* 
In this instance of an important drug involved in 
mystery, we see the necessity for some official medium 
through which to prosecute inquiry. Individual 
effort is insufficient, and the only effectual mode 
would emanate from the Government of India, to 
ascertain the areas and statistics of production of 
the different aconite roots in the Himalayas, their 
value commercially on the spot, the native names 
applied to the different kinds, and the plants pro¬ 
ducing them properly and satisfactorily identified. 
Then, as a consequence, the different varieties will 
be analysed and the value of each determined ac¬ 
cording to the amount of alkaloid present. This is 
but one out of scores, perhaps hundreds, of instances, 
in which information is required, of a special charac¬ 
ter, on the products of our vast Indian empire, and 
which no private effort is capable of obtaining. 
The Chinese species of aconite, allied to those of 
the Himalayas, are enumerated by Dr. Porter Smith 
as Aconitwm sinense, Aconitum varierjatam, and one 
or more other species known as TVau-wu-t'u, and 
Tah-peh-t'sail. The first named (A. sinense) are top- 
shaped, conical, tuberous roots, tapering down to 
a point, from one inch and a quarter to one inch 
and a half in length, and rather more than half an 
inch in thickness, according to the size and number 
of the dried rootlets which project irregularly from 
the surface. The external cuticle is irregularly 
rough and hard, and of a brownish-black colour, 
whilst the interior mealy structure is firm and of 
a dirty-white colour. The taste is bitter, acrid, and 
benumbing. Highly poisonous and scarcely used. 
The TVau-wu-t'u may be Aconitum ferox, but of 
this there is no certainty. They are probably the 
mixed roots of several species of Aconitum , of a very 
poisonous character from Kiangnan and Chekiang, 
and were formerly used to poison arrows for military 
and hunting purposes. “ The specimens vary a 
good deal, being sometimes ovoid, oblong, and taper¬ 
ing to a point, or bifid, or even rounded at the extremi¬ 
ties. They vary from three quarters of an inch to 
one inch and a half in length, are covered with a 
smootliish or wrinkled dark cuticle, and are very 
frequently worm-eaten. Internally they are whitish 
and starchy, have very little, if any, odour, but the 
taste is very acrid and benumbing. Liautung is 
said to yield the plant, from which a very powerful 
sun-dried extract is said to be prepared.”! 
Tuh-peh-t'sou is a species of aconite from a coun¬ 
try west of China, where a kind of arrow-poison is 
said to be prepared therefrom. 
ACTION OF BORAX ON FERMENTS OF THE 
DIASTASE GROUP. 
BY M. DUMAS.J 
In a note recently presented to the French Academy, 
M. Dumas communicated the following interesting in¬ 
formation relative to the action of borax upon the fer¬ 
ments of the diastase group :— 
Solution of borax coagulates beer-yeast, and the su¬ 
pernatant liquor does not invert cane-sugar as yeast- 
* Journal Agri. Hort. Society of India (I8G0), vol. xi. part 
2, p. i. 
t Dr. Porter Smith’s c Chinese Materia Medica.’ 1871. 
X ‘ Comptes Rend us,’ vol. lxxiv. 
water does. It dissolves albuminoid membranes ; those, 
for example, which separate from white of egg when 
suspended in water. 
Solution of borax neutralizes the action of yeast- 
water upon cane-sugar. If solutions of sugar and”yeast 
be placed together in one tube, and solutions of sugar, 
yeast, and borax in another, the first will quickly give 
signs of inversion; the second will not. 
Borax also neutralizes the action of synaptase. It is 
known that the hitter almond contains amygdalin, and 
the sweet almond the synaptase, which, mixed with the 
amygdalin, produces the essence of hitter almonds, ac¬ 
companied by prussic acid. It suffices to suspend the meal 
of sweet almonds in the one instance in pure water, 
and in the other in a solution of borax, and to add 
amygdalin to both liquids, to demonstrate this influence. 
With pure water, the odour of essence of bitter 
almonds becomes increasingly manifest, and the presence 
of prussic acid becomes more and more evident by the 
formation of prussian blue. With the solution of borax, 
neither is the odour of essence of bitter almonds per¬ 
ceptible nor the formation of prussian blue. 
Borax neutralizes the action of diastase. If four 
tubes containing water and potato starch be kept at 
70° C., the first without addition, the second with the 
addition of borax, the third with the addition of dias¬ 
tase, the fourth with the addition of both diastase and 
borax, it will be found that after several hours there 
will be no glucose present in the first and second ; after 
the first quarter of an hour there will be a considerable 
and increasing quantity in the third; in the fourth, 
where the borax and diastase are both present, the 
conversion of the starch into glucose does not take 
place. 
Malt suspended in water quickty yields an abundance 
of glucose if heated to 70° C., but the addition of borax 
arrests this action. With malt, water and borax, traces 
only of glucose are observed, which are probably due to 
its pre-existence in the malt. 
Borax interferes also with the action of myrosin. 
Flour of black mustard suspended in water, exhales al¬ 
most immediately the odour of essence of mustard, 
which increases in strength. Suspended in solution of 
borax, the odour characteristic of mustard meal is per¬ 
ceptible, which is due to the presence of a trace of the 
essence already formed ; but this does not augment, and 
there is nothing that recalls the known effects of water 
upon mustard, and the plentiful production of irritating 
vapours to which it gives rise. 
So that borax, by a property as remarkable as unsus¬ 
pected, neutralizes the action of yeast, synaptase, dias¬ 
tase and myrosin. M. Dumas promises to make known 
its effects upon pepsin, and the bearings these curious re¬ 
actions have upon the theory of ferments. 
THE MORE IMPORTANT SUBSTITUTES FOR 
GUNPOWDER. 
BY F. A. ABEL, F.R.S.* 
No progress has been made since 1868 in the applica¬ 
tion of explosive agents, other than gunpowder, to ar¬ 
tillery purposes. Somewhat limited experiments with 
gun-cotton in small field guns led the Austrians, about 
ten years ago, to the erroneous conclusion that they had 
conquered the difficulties attending the safe employment 
of gun-cotton, applied according to \ r an Lenk’s system, 
in guns of small calibre at least. Considerable progress 
was made in England during 1867-68 towards the pro¬ 
duction of a thoroughly safe cartridge of compressed 
gun-cotton for field guns, but much evidently still re¬ 
mained to be done when the experiments were suspended 
before a sufficiently uniform action of such a cartridge 
* Read at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, on 
Friday, May 17th, 1872. 
