Hay 13, 1871.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
907 
The flasks are well shaken and allowed to stand for ten 
.minutes. 
Part of the contents of each is then poured into the 
-corresponding test-tube, and a glance at the tubes as 
they stand side by side will show which is the least 
affected by the bleaching liquid. This sample having 
been selected to serve as a standard, the contents of the 
test-tube are returned to this flask, and more perman¬ 
ganate solution is cautiously added, until a very faint 
pink tinge, which a fraction of a c. c. will turn to a full 
yellow, is obtained. 
The number of c. c. used having been noted, a fresh 
trial is made, in which the c. c. required, minus one, are 
used, the flask agitated, and the last c. c. or part of it, as 
.the whole may not be necessary, added. If the two re¬ 
sults agree, the next sample is treated in the same way, • 
and so on until all are tested. 
I usually make a final trial by measuring tho 50 c. c. 
of each solution into its flask, running in the perman¬ 
ganate in the ascertained amount into each as quickly as 
possible, letting the flasks stand ten minutes, and then 
making a comparison of all in the test-tubes. 
If the shades are not exactly alike, a pretty good guess 
•can generally be made of the fractions of c. c. required, 
which should be added, the contents of the tubes being 
joined to that in the flasks, and a second or third com¬ 
parison thus made. 
This is a rather long description of what in practice is 
a very simple and good process, the three principal 
points to be borne in mind being, 
1. To use a weak solution of permanganate. 
•2. To have a very faint pink colour as a standard of 
comparison. 
3. To let the liquids remain after agitation together 
10-15 minutes before comparing them. 
I may add, that it is very remarkable how little can 
be told of the value of a sample of cochineal by a mere 
physical examination, and that the frequent inconsis¬ 
tency between value and price is equally surprising. I 
have known samples to differ thirty per cent, in colour¬ 
ing power, and only one or two cents per pound in 
.price .—American Chemist. 
TINCTURE OF HY03CYAMUS. 
BY M. DONOVAN. 
Some years since I published, through the medium of 
the Medical Press , an account of trials made on myself 
■and others, with a view to discover what dose of tincture 
of hyoscyamus should be given in order to produce its 
-sedative effects. The experiment was made on several 
persons, beginning with a drachm dose, increasing it to 
«ix drachms, and in my own case to one ounce, of the 
tincture of the Dublin Pharmacopoeia. In no case were 
any effects observed be} T ond dryness of the throat and 
fauces. The experiments were made with tinctures 
prepared from the dried leaves of garden-grown plants, 
from wild plants collected in a mountainous district of 
North Wales, and from the same leaves dried and un¬ 
dried. 
I was under the impression that some of the plants 
employed in making the tinctures on which I experi¬ 
mented were in the second year of their growth, but the 
Trials now to be described have convinced me that none 
of them could have been more than one year old. At 
that time I was not acquainted with the means which I 
have since discovered of testing the age of the plant. 
I satisfied myself by these experiments that tincture 
•of hyoscyamus prepared, as I believe it generally is in 
this country, from leaves of one year’s growth, is all 
but powerless. I was strengthened in this opinion by 
finding that M. Hertz has given upwards of fifteen 
grains of the extract, most probably made from the 
plant in its first year, without any sensible effect. 
Mr. Houlton had long before affirmed the inertness of 
the one-year-old plant, and the activity of that of two 
years old. 
In order to come to some determination on this sub¬ 
ject, I adopted means of procuring a tincture certainly 
made from the latter, and from trials with it soon con¬ 
vinced myself that it was an article of very different 
value from a tincture of the one-year-old plant, and 
that all my former experiments must have been made 
with the latter, although I was led to believe that, in 
some of them, the plant of two years’ growth had been 
used. 
My first trial was on myself. I took one drachm, and 
for an hour or two felt no effect beyond dryness of tho 
moutht On a subsequent occasion I took two drachms, 
and in two hours had proof that I had taken a suffi¬ 
ciency. My sensations were indescribable: one was a 
feeling of uncertainty of my steps in walking, although 
they were really quite steady, and a slight sensation of 
giddiness. This trial convinced me that I had taken as 
full a dose as prudence would permit. To a lady who 
suffered from headache I gave, at her own request, one 
drachm of this tincture. In about two hours she felt so 
overcome by sleepiness that she could scarcely keep her 
eyes open ; the headache was, however, greatly relieved. 
On another occasion she took a similar dose, and, being 
in bed, she soon fell into “a delightful sleep,” and, on 
awaking, found that the headache was almost gone ; but 
she complained of dryness of the fauces and throat, 
although on the first occasion she did not experience 
either of these effects. Some months after the same lady 
suffered from headache, and did not receive any benefit 
from a similar dose; nor did another person experience 
any relief from toothache nor any other effect beyond 
slight dryness of the fauces, which soon passed off. 
Convinced by the foregoing considerations that the 
medicinal properties of hyoscyamus reside exclusively 
in the plant of two years old, and that the plant of one 
year’s growth is therefore useless, I sought to discover 
an easy test by wdiich the age of the plant from which a 
given tincture had been prepared could be determined. 
The following has at least the advantage of simplicity: 
add a little of the tmctqre t9 a nflass of water; if tllO 
mixture become slightly milky, the tincture was made 
from a two years old plant; if it remain transparent, 
the plant was in its first year. 
The British Pharmacopoeia gives no information as to 
what shall be the age of the hyoscyamus from which the 
tincture is to be made; it is, thercfox*e, a matter of chance 
whether it will have any effect or be powerless. Given 
in the dose of twenty or thirty drops, as is sometimes 
done, it is hard to believe it can have any effect in either 
case .—The Medical Press and Circular. 
YEAST AND OTHER FERMENTS. 
BY C. A. WATKINS. 
(Continued from page 888.) 
"When starch or sugar is transformed* into butyric 
acid, vibriones are sure to be found in the fluid, whether 
they produce this fermentation or not; and lately a most 
remarkable statement has been published by M. Bechamps 
regarding this matter. This gentleman asserts that he 
has discovered that there exist at the present time, in 
* During the transformations which took place in these 
experiments, I detected no organism having the slightest 
resemblance to yeast; the only fungus being Oidium lactis, 
which does not grow in the fluid, and, in my opinion, has 
no reference to the fermentation. In all the instances in 
which lactic acid was formed, I noticed only bacteria or 
vibriones, and while I admit that under more favourable 
conditions of temperature other growths may appear, I do 
not consider any of these organisms to be the specific lactic 
acid ferment. 
