January 28, 1871.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
605 
and which is reported to have devastated it. Consi¬ 
dering the proximity of this portion of the empire to 
Canton, it is a significant fact that foreign opium 
has not entered into general use; and there can be 
no doubt that in the habituated taste of the native 
smokers the foreign drug lias had to contend against 
an influence nearly, if not quite, as powerful as its 
own high cost. 
The imputations which have been directed against 
the foreign trade in this article, in so far as it has 
affected this part of China, are disproved most con¬ 
vincingly by a journey up the West River. In no 
city, town or market village he enters will the tra¬ 
veller find the foreign opium consumed by the inha¬ 
bitants ; and in Kwangse, in only a few shops of the 
largest cities, will he succeed in meeting with it at 
all. The further he pushes inquiry the more firmly 
will he entertain the conviction that opium-smoking 
has been a habit common over the country from a 
period anterior to the present century, and that the 
supply has been met by native production. To im¬ 
pute its introduction into this portion of the country to 
the foreign opium trade is to assert what will appear 
to be positively contradicted by facts. 
SYNTHESIS OF ALKALOIDS. 
It has just been announced by Dr. Hugo Scliiff, 
of Florence, that he has succeeded in obtaining by 
synthesis a product which possesses the characteristic 
properties contained in the active principle of hem¬ 
lock (Gonium maculatum), in fact identical with the 
alkaloid conia. When alcoholic ammonia acts upon 
butyraldeliyd, at a temperature not above 100° C., 
tw r o bases are produced, one of vilich, dibutyraldine, 
is represented by the following formula :— 
C s H 17 NO = 2C 4 H s O + NH 3 -H 2 0. 
V-- r N _,_/ 
Dibutyraldine. Butyraldeliyd. 
By the dry distillation of dibutyraldine, there is 
obtained, among other products, a final one, which 
is the alkaloid in question. The following is the 
reaction that takes place:— 
c 8 h 17 no = h 2 o + c s h 15 n. 
Dibutyraldine. Conia. 
—Journal of Botany. 
PODOPHYLLIN.* * * * § ** 
Podophyllin, or the podophylh resina—a new pur¬ 
gative introduced into the British Pharmacopoeia—comes 
to us from the United States, where it has for many 
years been largely used, and is obtained, by the action 
of rectified spirit, from the dried rhizoma of the American 
may-apple, or mandrake (th e Podophyllum pelt alum). It 
has a well-established repute as a purgative, and, from 
the character of the motions produced by it, has been 
called “ vegetable mercury.” When the proper dose for 
a patient has been found, it acts very efficiently, but 
different constitutions require different doses; a grain 
dose is rarely required, in many cases a sixth of a grain 
acts gently and efficiently, while others may require a 
dose of half a grain, though in not a few such a quantity 
* Abstracted from a series of papers on the “ Progress of 
Therapeutics,” published in the Medical Times and (dazette. 
would act violently. Authorities are not in accord as to 
its action. By many it is considered to bo a powerful 
cholagogue, largely increasing the quantity of bile 
poured into the intestines; but while some assert that it 
excites increased secretion of bile, others say that its 
action as a cholagogue is only due to its stimulating the 
gall bladder to contract and expel its contents into the 
bowels. And again, others deny that it increases either 
the secretion or the excretion of bile. Dr. Anstie, who 
experimented wdth it on dogs and rats, came to the con¬ 
clusion that it has no special action on the liver; and 
the Committee of the British Medical Association ap¬ 
pointed to investigate the action of podophyllin on the 
liver reported that doses varying from two to eight 
grains, wdien given to dogs, diminished the solid consti¬ 
tuents of the bile, whether they produced purgation or 
not; and that doses which produced purgation lessened 
both the fluid and the solid constituents. * It is difficult, 
however, not to believe the strong evidence given in its 
favour as a useful and powerful cholagogue in man—in 
conditions of disorder or disease, at any rate. American 
physicians of scientific repute hold it in great esteem as 
a cholagogue and general eliminative. Dr. Gardner 
says, f “I know no other substance wdiich so certainly 
produced bilious evacuations wdien the liver is full of 
bile,” and specially speaks of its value in jaundice, in 
the torpid liver of those who have resided in tropical 
climates, in gout, and in the constipation wdiich often 
besets patients in phthisis. Dr. Ramskill, after an 
extensive employment of it, reports, “As a cholagogue, 
it stands pre-eminent and alone—far before mercury or 
any other drug that I ever administered. ... In very 
small doses it will procure an abundant flow of bile, mid 
often induce its discharge by vomiting, before, or even 
sometimes without any purging.” Dr. Sydney Ringer § 
recommends it in the obstinate constipation which often 
follow’s an attack of diarrhoea in hand-fed infants. He 
uses an alcoholic solution of the resin, containing one 
grain to the drachm of alcohol, and of this one or two 
drops are given. It may be considered as having ac¬ 
quired a well-established reputation. In America || it 
has been found, in small repeated doses, of great value 
as a deobstruent in scrofula, rheumatism, syphilis and 
other chronic diseases; and in England Dr. Marston, * * 
of the Royal Artillery, and Dr. R. S. Sisson, have em¬ 
ployed it in secondary syphilis as a substitute for mer¬ 
cury, with marked success. 
Its action as a purgative is rather uncertain, and is 
apt to be attended with griping, to prevent which it may 
be combined with small doses of henbane, belladonna, or 
cannabis indica; and its action is rendered more certain 
by giving compound colocynth or rhubarb pill, soap, or 
ipecacuanha with it. 
THE GUAVA. 
The guava is a tree which grows in tropical countries, 
and it is found principally in the West Indies. It is of 
the genus termed by botanists, Psidium , and is of tw r o 
sorts, the P. pomiferum and P. pyriferum. The plant 
does not attain any considerable size, being generally 
about fifteen feet high, and it is of very delicate forma¬ 
tion. The bark is quite thin, and of a light brown 
colour. It peels off in small portions when exposed to 
the sun; to prevent this, the trees are usually planted 
beneath others of a larger growdh and hardier nature. 
The leaves are of an elliptic, lanceolate form. They are 
very distinctly marked by the fibres of which they are 
* British Medical Journal, vol. i. p. 419, 1869. Practi¬ 
tioner, June, 1869, p. 355. 
f Lancet, vol. i. pp. 209 and 286,1862. 
j Lancet, loc. cit. 
§ ‘ Handbook of Therapeutics,’ 1869, p. 304. 
|| Rankin’s ‘Abstract,’ vol. xxxv. p. 243, 1862. 
** Lancet, January, 1864. 
