454 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[December 2,18/1. 
■one of great importance, and if the public knew that 
"chemists' shops were closed earlier, he had little doubt 
’they would remember the want of medicines as well as 
of groceries. 
The resolution was also supported by Messrs. Stead, 
Abbott and Manfield, and was carried unanimously. 
It was resolved that the President (Mr. E. Brown), 
Messrs. Abbott, Smeeton, Jefferson, Holmes and Simp¬ 
son, should constitute a committee to give practical effect 
to the resolution. 
Mr. E. Reynolds announced that the committee were 
enabled to offer four prizes for the best papers written 
hy associates upon the following subjects:—“The Pre¬ 
parations of Iron, officinal and non-officinal“Cin¬ 
chona Bark, the history, varieties, preparations of, and 
alkaloids obtained from;” “Rhubarb, its history and j 
preparations;” “Magnesia, and its officinal prepara¬ 
tions,” the two last subjects to be competed for by asso¬ 
ciates under twenty years of age. No prize would be 
.given unless two or more papers upon each subject were 
sent in to the Honorary Secretary, Mr. E. Yewdall. 
Mr. W. A. Wood was glad to observe the Society so 
vigorous, and urged upon associates the necessity of 
making proper use of the present opportunities. 
Mr. Geo. Ward proposed a vote of thanks to the 
chairman, which was seconded by Mr. E. Thompson, 
and carried unanimously. 
jof HrienMc ikcictus. 
SOCIETE DE PHARMACIE—PARIS. 
At the sitting of this society, on the 4th October, un¬ 
der the presidency of M. Lefort, M. Stanislas Martin 
presented a report of an analytical investigation on the 
flowers of false ebony (Cytisus sp.) which he had under¬ 
taken in consequence of some poisoning accidents that 
had been caused by them. He had been assisted in his 
researches by MM. Marmie and Husemann, who had ob¬ 
tained cytisine from the husks and seeds of that tree. 
M. Stanislas Martin has found that alkaloid in the 
flowers, and has besides extracted from them glucose and 
an acid that he has named cytisic acid. He presented 
to the Society specimens of this substance, and of the 
flower from which it had been extracted. 
M. Soubeiran announced that he had just received 
from M. Van Gorkom specimens of cinchona barks cul¬ 
tivated in Java. The species represented were C. lanci- 
. folia, officinalis , Calisaya and Hasskarliana ; of the two 
latter species there were barks, branches and roots. 
The culture of cinchona in Java, as shown by a report 
recently issued by the Dutch Government, was in a 
prosperous state, and did honour to the intelligent su¬ 
pervision of M. Van Gorkom, who had collected this 
j r ear 11,000 kilogrammes of well-dried barks. Half of 
this quantity was retained in Java, for use in pharmacy 
and for the preparation of quinium, the finest barks 
alone being exported to Europe. 
M. Petit read a communication from M. Hardy, chief 
-of the laboratory of the Pharmacie Centrale, in which 
it was stated that if kirsch gave a blue coloration with 
guaiac resin, it showed that, besides hydrocyanic acid, it 
-contained traces of copper. The presence of alcohol 
was necessary to this reaction. If it did not take place 
in cherry-laurel water containing copper, it was because 
of the absence of alcohol; and M. Hardy described a 
process for detecting small quantities of alcohol in water, 
that was founded on this principle. 
M. Petit referred to the blue colouring matter that he 
had obtained from eserin (physostigmatin), and claimed 
that, although a passing coloration had previously been 
observed by MM. Vee and Duquesnel, he was the first to 
/obtain a definite substance, of intense colouring proper¬ 
ties, crystallizable,and giving, in a toxicological point of 
view, a reaction seldom equalled among the alkaloids. 
He also described to the Society a process that he employed 
for the direct preparation of sulphate of eserin, without 
having recourse to the distillation of etherized liquors. 
M. Limousin made some remarks upon the method of 
administering medicines by means of gelatine, now 
adopted in Sweden and elsewhere, and expressed a doubt 
whether it was applicable in all cases; for example, an 
emetic such as ipecacuanha, where it was necessary that 
the medicine should come immediately and entirely in 
contact with the fluids of the stomach. 
M. Grassi said that, although the Swedish pharma¬ 
cists claimed to succeed in dividing the doses with great 
exactitude, he believed that in practice there would be 
considerable difference in the quantity of the medicine 
contained in different squares of gelatine, as it was im¬ 
possible to obtain sheets of that substance of the same 
thickness throughout. 
SOCIETY OF ARTS. 
Dyes and Dye-Stuees other than Aniline.* 
BY DR. CRACE-CALVERT, E.R.S. 
Lecture II. 
Red Colouring Substances fcontinued). — Munject; Campcchy 
Reach , Sapan , Cam and Bar 1 Roods; Alkanet Root; 
Saffiower; Cochineal, Lac Dye ; Murexide. 
(Continued from page 437.) 
Sandal, Cam , and Bar Woods. —The next class of dye¬ 
stuffs which we shall have the pleasure of studying 
together are derived from several varieties of the genus 
Pterocarpus , which are indigenous to the tropical parts 
of both the new and the old world. It is principally 
from the East Indies, Ceylon, Madagascar and the coast 
of Malabar that santal, sandal, or red sanders wood is 
imported, whilst cam and bar woods are procured from 
Sierra Leone. 
The colour-giving principle of this class of plants is 
only developed with age, the young branches not con¬ 
taining any, "whilst it is found in large quantities in the 
trunk. Professor Bolley proved that it is the same 
colour-giving principle which exists in each variety, and 
he gave it the name of santaline. MM. Wagermann and 
Haeffely consider that it has the formula C ls H 14 0 5 . It 
is a bright red crystalline powder, insoluble in water, 
but soluble in alcohol, ether, and acetic acid. The latter 
solvent yields the colouring matter to albumen, -which is 
an important fact, and may one day be rendered prac¬ 
tically useful. Santaline is freely soluble in alkalies, 
giving a violet-red solution, from which acids precipitate 
the colouring matter. 
I Sandal-wood is chiefly used on the Continent, where it 
is employed to give a bottomf to cloth which is to be 
afterwards dyed with indigo. By this process a very 
fine blue is produced, having a purple hue by reflected 
light. 
Cam-wood, and especially bar-wood, is chiefly used in 
England for producing on cotton yarns brilliant orange- 
red colours, known as mock Turkey-reds. They are, 
, however, neither so fast nor so bright as the real 
Turkey-red produced from madder, and are easily dis¬ 
tinguished from it by yielding their colour to a hot soap 
solution, or to alkalies. 
Alkanet. —The root of the Anchusa tinctoria contains a 
beautiful red resinous principle, to which Professor 
Bolley assigns the formula C^- II 40 0 8 , which is inso- 
* Cantor Lecture, delivered Tuesday, Feb. 14. Reprinted 
from the Journal of the Society of Arts. 
f This term is used in dyeing, to denote that a colour is 
applied to a fabric with a view of givmg a peculiar hue to a 
dye which is applied after it. 
