66 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[July 23, 187a 
With regard to the resistance in the dry state, a tem¬ 
perature of 130° C. is believed to be necessarily fatal to 
all organisms; certainly, however, a red heat must be 
fatal. 
Many experiments on the possibility of spontaneous 
generation have been made as follows (the method being 
that used by Schwann in the year 1837) :— 
The solution of organic matter is boiled in a flask, and 
is by this treatment rendered germless. The neck of 
the flask opens into a tube containing red-hot pumice- 
stone, packed closely together. As the liquid cools, air 
will re-enter the flask, to occupy the vacant space above 
the liquid. But all air that re-enters has to pass through 
the tube armed with red-hot pumice-stone, and must, 
therefore, be in a germless state as it enters the flask. 
Now, after the lapse of several months, sometimes 
living things have been found in the flask and sometimes 
not. Under these conditions, living things have been 
repeatedly observed by Schwann, Ingenhousz, Mante¬ 
gazza, Pouchet, Joly, Musset, Jeffries Wymann, Dr. 
Child, and even by Pasteur himself, who, however, offers 
a kind of explanation in order to account for such a re¬ 
sult. Under still severer treatment, Jeffries Wymann, of 
Cambridge, United States, has produced living organisms, 
viz. in a liquid which had been heated to 120° C., and 
excluded from uncalcined air. Professor Mantegazza 
heated to 120° C., Professor Cantoni, of Pavia, to 142° C., 
for four hours, and still obtained organisms. 
The author’s work is in confirmation of that of Pou¬ 
chet, Wymann, Mantegazza, Cantoni, and others. He 
operated thus:—Into a small flask, of about two ounces 
capacity, was placed the liquid to be experimented upon, 
and which generally occupied about three-quarters of 
the flask. The neck of the flask was next drawn out 
by me^ns of the blow-pipe flame. The liquid was next 
boiled, and whilst the steam was freely issuing through 
the narrow neck, the latter was made red-hot. The boil¬ 
ing of the liquid was then stopped, and the red-hot 
narrow neck sealed up by means of the blow-pipe. After 
being thus charged, the experimental flasks were main¬ 
tained at temperatures of 23° C. and 29° C., until the ex¬ 
periment was complete. 
By operating in this manner, he got distinct and abun¬ 
dant development of bacteria, vibrios, and leptothrix 
filaments in solutions of beef-juice and decoctions of 
turnip, carrot, and hay. The duration of the experi¬ 
ment varied from five days to about one month. The 
superiority of operations in vacuo over those in calcined 
air is insisted on; the influence of pressure being appa¬ 
rently to retard the vital process. 
Another set of experiments embraced saline solutions 
made with distilled water. 
Acetate of ammonia, and phosphate of soda gave 
nothing living after ten days. 
_ Tartrate of ammonia and phosphate of soda, the solu¬ 
tion having been boiled for twenty minutes, gave, in 
eleven days, abundant signs of confervas. 
In other experiments the sealed flask was exposed to a 
temperature of 140° to 150° in a Papin’s digester, and, 
after this treatment, there was development of organisms, 
sometimes very abundantly. 
NEW MATERIAL FOR BLISTERS. 
The following formula for the preparation of a blis¬ 
tering material is given by MM. Delpech and Gui- 
chard:— 
Take of Gelatine, 30 grains. 
Water, 150 grains. 
Alcohol, 150 grains. 
Cantharidate of Potash, 6 grains. 
Glycerine, a sufficient quantity. 
The liquid is to be painted on thin sheets of gutta 
percha, in such quantity than 4 inches square (t. e. 16 
square inches) shall receive about f grain of cantharidate 
of potash. 
The advantage of cantharidate of potash over cantha- 
ridine is, that it is not volatile, and does not lose in 
strength on exposure. It is prepared by the action of 
potash on cantharidine, and crystallizes in the form of 
fine scales. 
ASHY CROWN CINCHONA IN VENEZUELA. 
Dr. Ernst, the President of the Society of Natural and 
Physical Sciences of Caracas, has rediscovered the Cin¬ 
chona cor difolia, Mutis, var. rotundifolia , Weddell ( C . ro.~ 
tundifolia , Pavon), in the neighbourhood of Caracas, a 
specimen having been collected in 1829 by Dr. Vargas 
in the same place. 
In an excursion made by Dr. Ernst, the trees were 
found in groups on the slopes of Papelon, Anauco, Gali- 
pan, etc., at an elevation of 4500 feet above the sea-level. 
The trees were covered with lichens (the Graphis sulcata 7 
DC., being particularly noticed), and the largest of them 
had a circumference of 83 centimetres. The same tree 
is said probably to occur in Mariches, from whence small 
quantities of bark were collected for exportation some 
time ago. The bark of this tree is known in commerce 
as Ashy Crown Bark, one of the Loxa or Crown Barks, 
and occurs in quills. From an analysis made by Senor 
Vicente Marcano, a member of the same society, 60 
grammes of this bark yielded 3 decigrammes of quinine, 
and 4 decigrammes of cinchonine. The bark, however, 
was collected at the wrong season. 
From Port Cabello another bark, known as Quina 
Maracaibo, is exported. This is the produce of the 
Cinchona Tucujensis , a tree growing only to the height of 
12 to 15 feet, which is found in the forests surrounding 
the colony of Tovar. In the same forests are found Cin¬ 
chona (now Buena) Henleana and Moritziana of Ivlotzschu 
— Vargasia : Bolotin de la Sociedad de Ciencias Fisicas y 
Naturales de Caracas , No. 7, 1870. 
Accidental Poisoning by Arsenic. —A shocking 
case of poisoning through the ignorance of a servant- 
girl, has occurred at Cradley Heath, in Staffordshire. A 
little boy in the family where the girl was employed 
being ill, she resolved, in his mother’s absence, to give 
him a dose of magnesia. Instead of it she gave arsenic, 
being unable to read the label on the packet. The 
little boy died. The girl, who took a dose of the poison 
herself, recovered. 
Fatal Case of Accidental Poisoning. —Early on 
Saturday morning last, great excitement was created in 
the town of Ashbourn and its immediate neighbourhood, 
by a report that a whole family, consisting of a man 
and his wife, his son, a lodger, and female servant, had 
been accidentally poisoned in Compton. Mr. Abel 
Harrison (the deceased) and his family occupied a pub¬ 
lic-house in Compton. The house was undergoing re¬ 
pair, and advantage was taken of this to cleanse the- 
bedrooms. For this purpose Harrison sent for some- 
arsenic (according to the accounts that we can gather, 
amounting to about a pound), which a man named Welsh 
mixed with naphtha and turpentine, for the purpose of 
cleansing the walls of the bedrooms, using a syringe for 
the crevices which could not be got at with an ordinary 
brush. This took place nine days previous to the acci¬ 
dent. On Friday night the family slept for the first 
time in the room, and on Saturday morning they all 
found themselves seriously ill. Surgeons were called in, 
and gave it as their opinion that they were all suffering 
from arsenic, which they had inhaled during the night. 
On Sunday night the deceased had a turn for the worse, 
and on Monday morning death took place about eleven, 
o’clock. An inquest was held on Tuesday before the- 
Coroner, Mr. Whiston, and a verdict of “Accidental 
Death ” was recorded. 
