701 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[Marcli 8, 1873. 
view, did not settle the question of the artificial produc¬ 
tion of the rotatory power. The researches were made 
with ordinary succinic acid, which is obtained, as is 
known, from various natural substances, a fact which 
justified Pasteur in asking,* whether, this succinic acid 
“is really inactive by nature,” whether it were not 
rather “ inactive by compensation,” or even whether it 
were “not an active body, the action of which upon 
polarized light was so feeble as to be demonstrated 
with difficulty.” 
A short time after the publication of the experiments of 
Perkins and Duppa, Maxwell Simpson formed the happy 
idea of extending to the polyatomic compounds the facts 
relative to the nitriles discovered by Dumas, Malaguti 
and Le Blanc ; he thus formed, among other remarkable 
syntheses, succinic acid by means of olefiant gas or 
ethylene, by the intervention of cyanide of ethylene. 
Ethylene may be easily obtained from acetylene, produced 
by the direct union of the elements, carbon and hydrogen, 
as shown by Berthelot. If then, starting with olefiant 
gas, succinic acid could be prepared, and with it the ex¬ 
periments of Perkins and Duppa repeated; and if the 
tartaric acid so obtained could be split up into two acids, 
optically active, the question would be completely eluci¬ 
dated. 
I therefore first prepared succinic acid from ethylene. 
The yield was very small, and I operated upon no less 
than 3800 grams of pure bibromide of ethylene. This 
product was transformed by portions of 300 grams into 
dicyanide of ethylene, according to the method of Simp¬ 
son ; the coloured dicyanide obtained was dissolved in 
five or six times its volume of water and heated in a 
water-bath. Nitric acid diluted with its own weight of 
water was then added little by little, giving nitrate of 
ammonia and succinic acid. 
C 4 H 4 (C 2 N ) 2 + 2N0 5 , HO + 4H 0 0 o = C 3 H 6 0 3 + 
2N0 5 ,NH 4 0. - 
or in the modern notation— 
C 2 H 4 Cy 2 + 2 IINO 3 + 4IDO = H 9 C 4 H 4 0 4 + 
2NH 4 N0 3 
The acid was neutralized by potash and precipitated by 
a salt of lead, and the acid of the succinate of lead after¬ 
wards set free by sulphuretted hydrogen. The quantity of 
pure and perfectly crystallized succinic acid thus ob¬ 
tained, notwithstanding the inevitable loss attending a 
lengthened manipulation, was upwards of 300 grams. 
Following the methods indicated by Perkin, Duppa 
and Kekule, with a few modifications, 247 grams of the 
succinic acid obtained from ethylene yielded 62 grams of 
crystalline and colourless tartrate of lime, identical with 
that obtained from the succinic acid of commerce. The 
lime salt was converted into free acid and all the inactive 
acid into racemic acid. 
Lastly, the racemic acid was converted into the double 
tartrate of soda and ammonia, according to the method 
of Pasteur. The liquor yielded three kinds of crystals ; 
some, very clearly hemihedric to the left, identical with 
the laevo-tartrate, and forming a solution possessing the 
power of rotating polarized light to the left; others 
hemihedric to the right, identical with the dextro-tar- 
trate, a solution of which was capable of rotating it to 
the right. 
These facts appear to demonstrate that the rotatory 
power can be produced without the intervention of life, 
and by means of compounds formed entirely by synthesis 
from the elements. 
OPIUM TRADE OF INDIA. 
The official annual ‘ Statement of the Progress and 
Condition of India ’ has been issued. It relates to the 
financial year 1870-71. The balance-sheet shows re¬ 
venue and receipts amounting to £51,413,686 and ex¬ 
penditure amounting to £49,930,696, presenting in the 
net result an improvement of £1,387,678 over the pre- 
* ‘ Annales de Chimie et de Physique [3] yob xx. p. 234. 
ceding year, whereof £961,801 was due to the increase 
of the Income-tax. The accounts show an increased ex¬ 
penditure on opium, the results of increased cultivation 
and manufacture in Bengal and the North-West Pro¬ 
vinces. The gross receipt from opium was £8,045,459, 
which was reduced to a net sum of little more then 
six millions by an expenditure amounting to £2,014,425. 
Opium, however, is still the most lucrative source of 
the Indian Revenue next to the land, and will remain so 
while a preference is shown to the Indian drug in the 
Chinese market. The systems of raising opium revenue 
in Bombay and Bengal are different. In the former all 
that is done is to levy a heavy export duty on the opium 
as it enters British territory from the native States of 
Central India, where it is grown and manufactured. 
On the Bengal side advances of money are made by 
Government to the ryots to enable them to grow the 
plant, and the manufacture is under the charge of a 
special department. The sales are made in the open 
market in Calcutta, and the profits are even larger than 
those- realized by the export duty at Bombay. The 
opium thus sold in Calcutta is termed “provision” 
opium, while that portion which is sold at the Govern¬ 
ment treasuries to licensed retail vendors for consump¬ 
tion in the country is called Abkaree opium. The land 
under cultivation in the Behar and Benares agencies in 
1870-71 was 530,557 acres, against 500,750 in 1869-70. 
There were 49,030 chests of provision opium sold, being 
3350 in excess of the sale in 1869-70. Abkaree or 
excisable opium—that is, the opium consumed in India 
—bears a very small proportion to the quantity ex¬ 
ported to China, and brings in hardly 5 per cent, of the 
entire opium revenue. Its value, however, has been 
much increased by the prohibition in 1860 of opium 
cultivation in Assam, where the drug was and still is 
largely consumed by the Indo-Chinese races. This pro¬ 
hibition has largely restricted the use of opium by rais¬ 
ing its price, and has been followed by a perceptible 
improvement in the physical condition of the people. 
In the Noi’th-Western Provinces the monopoly of opium 
is farmed out in each district. The Bombay report 
shows pass fees paid in the year on the large number 
of 39,978 chests, nearly all from Indore. The habit of 
opium-eating is described as now almost universal in 
Rajpootana and Central India. In 1820 the ordinary 
value of opium land was is. the beegah (in Malway a 
little more than half an acre), but within 20 years it 
quadrupled, and now it will command from 20 s. to 100 s., 
and in many places even more. So long as the free 
cultivation of the poppy is prohibited in India, no produce 
can be so remunerative in the native States; and the 
report on Central India states that it is computed that 
there are now 900,000 beegahs of the best land devoted 
to it, to the exclusion of the food supplies of the people. 
With the growth or sale of the drug in native territory 
the British Government has nothing to do; the culti¬ 
vator and trader sell to whom they please, and, after 
paying the duty, the owner receives a pass authorizing 
him to remove the chest when and where he chooses. 
Recently peimission has been given to Sindia to pro¬ 
vide an establishment within his own territory for 
weighing the opium intended for export; and during the 
last year 12,643 chests were brought to scale at Onjein, 
an old city which had become almost deserted, but is 
now fast recovering its former importance. Scales are 
also established at Oodeypoor.— Times. 
MEETING- OF CHEMISTS AND DRUGGISTS AT 
GREENOCK. 
At a recent meeting of the chemists and druggists in 
business at Greenock it was unanimously resolved to 
raise the prices of drugs to the new Glasgow standard. 
At the same meeting it was also unanimously agreed to 
close entirely at eight o’clock on ordinary nights, and 
at nine o’clock on Saturdays. 
