816 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[April 12, 1873. 
B, C, D, E, F, but I think none to prevent their being 
used in pharmacy and medicine when not intended for 
internal administration. 
I consider that pure medicinal glycerine should not be 
affected by nitrate of silver, sulphuric acid, oxalate of am¬ 
monia, or exposure to sunlight, and should be perfectly 
free from smell after this treatment. 
A long and interesting discussion followed. The Pre¬ 
sident alluded to several experiments he had made to 
ascertain if glycerine and water would freeze, and thought 
it a singular fact that they would not, and hoped for some 
explanation of the phenomenon. 
Dr. Cook, of Edinburgh, ably criticized the paper, 
alluding to a specimen of solid glycerine which Dr. Glad¬ 
stone exhibited before the Chemical Society, which had 
come from Vienna, supposed to be frozen by excessive 
cold and the motion of the train. Dr. Cook thought the 
fruity smell produced by treating glycerine with absolute 
alcohol and rectified sulphuric acid was due to the pre¬ 
sence of formic acid rather than butyric. The mousey 
smell from some samples he thought was due to acrolein. 
Messrs. Armstrong, Tanner, Rigby, and Williams con¬ 
tinued the discussion, after which Mr. Mason replied to 
the various questions which had been raised. 
On the motion of the President, supported by Dr. Cook, 
an unanimous vote of thanks was accorded to Mr. Mason 
for his interesting communication, and the meeting ter¬ 
minated. 
CHEMICAL SOCIETY. 
Thursday, 3rd April, 1873. Dr. Odling, F.R.S., etc., 
President, in the chair. 
After the formal business of the Society was transacted, 
a paper on “ A method of Determining with great exact¬ 
ness the Specific Gravity of Liquids,” was read by the 
author, Dr. Sprengel. The instrument, consisting of a 
U-shaped glass tube, terminating in capillary tubes bent 
at right angles, is very delicate when proper precautions 
are taken. The second paper, entitled “ Researches on 
the Action of the Copper-zinc Couple on Organic Bodies, 
No. II. on the Iodides of Methyl and Amyl,” by J. H. 
Gladstone, F.R.S., and A. Tribe, is a continuation of the 
authors’ researches on this subject, an account of which 
they communicated to the Society some short time ago. 
Dr. C. R. A. Wright then read a memoir “ On Cymene 
from various Sources,” in which he gives the results of his 
examination of cymene prepared from eight different 
sources, showing them to be identical. The last paper 
w&s by Dr. H. E. Armstrong, being No. XI. of “Com¬ 
munications from the Laboratory of the London Institu¬ 
tion, Action of the Acid Chlorides on Nitrates and Nitrites, 
Part I. Acetic Chloride.” 
The meeting finally adjourned until Thursday, 17th 
April, when a lecture “ On the Heat produced by Che¬ 
mical Action,” will be delivered by Dr. Debus, F.R.S. 
PARIS SOCIETE DE PH ARM AC IE. 
A meeting of this Society was held on Wednesday, 
March 5, under the presidency of M. Bussy. In the 
course of the preliminary business a letter was read asking 
the advice of the Society, under the following circum¬ 
stances :—A pharmacien having died without leaving 
either widow or children, his brothers and sisters had 
provisionally carried on the business under the super¬ 
intendence of a qualified pharmacien, assisted by a pupil 
approved by the medical jury of the department. This 
state of things had been denounced as illegal by another 
pharmacien, who had entered an action against the heirs, 
which being in the first instance decided in their favour, 
was now carried on apjflal to the court at Caen. It was 
stated in the discussion which followed the reading of the 
letter that the custom in the Paris Circumscription was 
to allow to children, brothers, or sisters inheriting, the 
same delay as to a widow, putting them under the same 
obligations. This authorization was usually accorded by 
the Prefect of Police, on the advice of the School of 
Pharmacy. 
M. Poggiale presented a note by M. Pollacci on the 
preparation of the hydrates of potash and soda by heating 
the nitrates of the alkalies with iron filings. 
Commercial Propylamine. 
M. Wurtz read the report of the commission appointed 
to investigate the subject of the propylamine of commerce. 
The report, pointed out that it was no part of their duty 
to answer the question as to what was the therapeutic 
value of propylamine, but that since that substance was 
prescribed by medical men the duty of pharmacists was 
to furnish it pure, and always identical in physical and 
chemical characters and medical properties. 
Propalymine was stated to have been first discovered in 
1850 by Wertheim, while treating narcotine with a caustic 
alkali, and to have been afterwards noticed by Winckler 
in ergotine and herring brine ; by Wicke in the flowers 
of Crcitcegus oxgacantha ; by Dessaignes in the Cheno- 
podium vulvaria, in the blood of veal and in human urine. 
But in 1863, Wicke arrived at the conclusion that this 
ammonia compound, which he had also obtained from the 
flowers of the pear and mountain-ash, was trimethylamine. 
The method adopted by all these authors was to mix the sub¬ 
stance from which it was wished to obtain the propylamine 
with potash or lime and submit the mixture to distillation. 
The gases disengaged (a mixture of ammonia, “propy¬ 
lamine,” etc.) were collected in water acidulated with 
hydrochloric acid. The solution being evaporated, the 
residue was treated with absolute alcohol, which dis¬ 
solved only the chloride of “ propylamine ; ” this was 
afterwards decomposed by lime and the “ propylamine ” 
collected in water. The “ propylamine ” used by Dr. 
Dujardin-Beaumetz, and which has been obtained from 
herring brine, is a colourless liquid having an odour sui 
generis of herring brine and ammonia. But the reporters 
do not think this substance is really propylamine, and 
consider that nearly all the authors who have treated of 
this subject have mistaken an aqueous solution of trime¬ 
thylamine for that substance. 
The propylamine obtained by means of propylic alcohol 
by Sylva, in 1869, was a liquid having a strong ammo- 
niacal odour, very alkaline, inflammable, colouring cupric 
solutions blue, precipitating alumina from its solutions 
and re-dissolving the precipitate, characters which belong 
also to its isomer isopropylamine, discovered by Gautier, 
which he obtained by means of isopropylcarbilamine :— 
NC 4 H 7 + 2H 2 0 = C 3 H 9 N-}-CH 2 0 2 . 
But these three ammonias, although isomeric, differ from 
each other in their boiling points and the crystalline forms 
of their salts.- Thus trimethylamine boils at between 4° 
and 5° C.; propylamine at from 49° to 50° C. ; and 
isopropylamine at from 31° to 32° C. Winckler has 
established the identity of trimethylamine obtained from 
herring brine with that prepared synthetically, not only 
by direct comparison of the two bodies, but also by the 
characteristic reaction with iodide of methyl in the pro¬ 
duction of a crystalline magma of rectangular prisms of 
iodide of trimethylammonium. 
Tlie reporters consider that the commercial “propyla¬ 
mine ” is but a complex product containing trimethylamine 
and ammonia in a greater or less degree of concentration ; 
that medical men are using a substance of variable com¬ 
position and consequently the results cannot always be the 
same. They therefore suggest that a uniform method of 
preparation should be adopted, such as to distil herring 
brine and collect the product in acidulated water, as before 
described; or that as it is trimethylamine which is contained 
