July 22, 1871.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
G3 
About one pound and a quarter in weight were 
received for analysis. 
The sample consisted of stem and branches of 
apparently a shrub, but was unaccompanied by leaf 
or root, so that the botanical characters of the plant 
could not be determined. 
The stem is woody, and covered by a greenish or 
ash-grey bark, the former tint being due to the 
lichens on its surface; the branches are from half an 
inch to a little over an inch in diameter, averaging 
about the thickness of the finger; the woody fibre is 
straw-coloured and brittle, breaking with a sharp 
fracture ; it is almost tasteless, having a slightly 
aromatic and bitter flavour when chewed. 
The bark contains whatever medicinal virtues are in 
the plant. It is of grey colour, slightly ribbed or fluted 
longitudinally from unequal contraction while dry¬ 
ing on the branch ; increasing in thickness in propor¬ 
tion to the diameter of the woody stem, in the thicker 
branches constituting more than half the weight of 
the whole, in the thinner somewhat less than half; 
readily separable from the stem by pounding or 
bruising, when it comes off in clean longitudinal 
pieces, brittle in the transverse fracture ; of a warm, 
aromatic, camphor and bitter taste, resembling the 
cascarilla of the old collections. Under the lens it 
is readily resolvable into three layers : 1st, the inner 
layer or cambium of reticular woody tissue, having 
granules of starch and particles of resin imbedded; 
find, a middle layer of woody fibre and dotted ducts, 
resinous particles also in this layer; and 3rd, the 
cuticular or outer layer of cells, of a brownish colour, 
and containing colouring lnatter and tannic acid. 
The usual methods of filtration from digestion in 
the usual solvents, as gasolene boiling at 110°, ether, 
alcohol, carbon disulphide, water, etc., were adopted. 
1. Ratio of bark to wood— 
Bark . 40'72| Mean of these 
Wood . 50‘28J experiments. 
100 - 
2. 100 parts of bark yield—■ 
Moisture at 100° C. . . . 8* 
Mineral salts (ash) ... 12* 
Vegetable substance . . 80* 
100 * 
3. This vegetable matter was separable into the 
following:— 
Fatty matter soluble in ether, and 
partially in strong alcohol . . *7 
Yellow resin, soluble in alcohol . 2*7 
Gum and glucose from starch . *5 
Tannin, 3 r ellow and brown co¬ 
louring matters (extractive) . 12 - G 
Cellulose, lignin, etc.63'5 
80 - 
No crystalline alkaloid or active principle was se¬ 
parable by the usual methods of proximate analysis. 
A plan similar to that used for cinchona alkaloids, 
and also that by precipitation with diacetate of lead, 
was tried. By distillation no volatile oil or acid was 
obtained. 
Whatever medicinal virtues the plant may possess 
must reside either in the yellow' resin or in the ex¬ 
tractive; the former is soluble in alcohol, and the 
latter in water. In the watery decoction some of 
the resin is diffused, but the greater portion of the 
resin is not extracted by the water. The tlierapeu ■ 
tic position of the plant, judged from analysis, might 
be among the aromatic bitters.— Amer.Journ. Pharm. 
ENGLISH CHLOROFORM IN GERMANY, 
BY DR. F. VERS MANN. 
Many professors of German laboratories and pro¬ 
prietors of chemical works have adopted the valu¬ 
able plan of communicating to the journals, from 
time to time, observations and points of practical 
experiences made in the course of their investiga¬ 
tions ; and it v'ould be v r ell if this plan was imitated 
here, as much labour and trouble may often be saved 
by this liberal exchange of practical information. 
This arrangement, like everything good, is, how¬ 
ever, not quite unalloyed, for it sometimes happens 
that statements are published which are of little use, 
or which, on examination, are found to be incorrect. 
The last is the case with a communication in a 
current number of Buchner’s ‘ Bepertorium der 
Cliemie,’ and as this special incorrectness bears on 
an English article, it may not be out of place to 
rectify it. Mr. E. Sobering, in his practical commu¬ 
nication, asserts that abroad English chloroform, 
sp. gr. 1485, is, for anaesthetic purposes, preferred to 
the German (the Prussian Pharmacopoeia prescribes, 
a specific gravity of 1500) because of its greater sta¬ 
bility. 
According to Mr. Sobering, the presumption was 
natural that the English product had been obtained 
from chloral, and tins idea w r as actually verified by 
Mr. Hager’s investigation, who found it to be chloral 
chloroform with an addition of ’75 to '80 per cent, of 
alcohol; but not a word is said as to the manner in 
which this result had been arrived at. Mr. Sobering 
refers his readers to his price list of last year, in 
which he quotes chloral chloroform, and he informs 
them that he now keeps an article of sp. gr. 1485, 
identical w'ith the English, or, according to his own, 
words, adulterated with alcohol. 
Mr. Hager actually distinguishes the tv r o prepa¬ 
rations ; he says, the chloral chloroform becomes 
slightly coloured on addition of strong sulphuric 
acid, whereas the pure, obtained from hypochlorite 
of lime and alcohol, remains colourless. 
Another difference is said to be, that ordinary 
chloroform, on being allowed to evaporate on a 
watch-glass, gives off, with the last few drops, a 
distinct foreign smell, indicating the jiresence of 
other chlorine compounds, which may be the cause 
of the ready decomposition of the chloroform ivhen 
exposed to the light, and this is not the case with 
the product obtained in the new manner. 
The manufacture of chloral in quantities and at a 
reasonable price, is of so recent a date that it is 
scarcely necessary to recall the fact that seldom, if 
ever, the supply of any chemical compound re¬ 
sponded so readily to the demand, as with the 
chloral. The price of chloral hydrate was, at the 
commencement of last year, 1126-. a pound; before 
the year was out it had gone down to 12s., and it is 
now sold at 5s. and even less. 
Surely at this time when the hydrate commanded 
such high prices and the manufacture was in its in¬ 
fancy, no English manufacturer would have dreamt 
of converting chloral into chloroform, and with the 
present low prices and the high duty on alcohol, he 
