December 30,1871.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
529 
This result haying- been well established, experiments 
were next made with a mixture of three substances, 
water, amylic alcohol and butylic alcohol. It was then 
found that in this case the temperature of ebullition was 
no longer constant; it rose continually from the com¬ 
mencement to the end of the distillation, but was always 
confined between 90°-o C. and 96° C. It appeared to 
rise in proportion as the relative quantity of amylic alco¬ 
hol in the mixture was greater. 
The proportion of water which distilled over augmented 
with the boiling-point of the mixture ; but while it was 
always more than one-sixth of the total product (the 
proportion in the mixture of water and butylic alco¬ 
hol), it was always less than two-fifths of the volume 
(the proportion in the mixture of water and amylic 
.alcohol). 
It seems to result from this, that a mixture of water, 
butylic alcohol and amylic alcohol, submitted to distil¬ 
lation, yields a product increasingly poor in butylic 
alcohol and increasingly rich in amylic alcohol, and 
that the separation of these two substances is progres¬ 
sive, as it is when a mixture of them is treated in the 
absence of water. 
Pending further investigation into this interesting sub¬ 
ject, which it is hoped will permit of more general con¬ 
clusions, the authors consider themselves justified in lay¬ 
ing down the following propositions:— 
1. When a binary mixture of water and amylic alcohol, 
or water and butylic alcohol, is submitted to distillation, 
the boiling-point remains stationary until only one of 
the two liquids remains in the retort. 
2 . The boiling-point is always below that of the most 
volatile liquid. 
3. In each of these mixtures the relative proportions 
of water and alcohol which distil over are constant, but 
these proportions are not the same for both mixtures. 
4. When a ternary mixture of water, amylic alcohol! 
..and butylic alcohol is submitted to distillation, the boil-1 
ing-point no longer remains constant; it varies according 
to the relative proportions of the two alcohols, but always 
remains lower than that of the most volatile of the three 
liquids, and ranges between those of the two binary 
mixtures before mentioned. 
5. The proportion of the quantity of water to that of 
fihe mixture of alcohols which passes over with it, is not 
constant, but augments with the temperature of the mix¬ 
ture ; it is always, however, within the limits of the 
corresponding proportions previously observed in the 
binary mixtures, that is to say between one-fifth and two- ! 
thirds. 
In a future memoir the authors propose to bring for- ; 
ward other analogous facts, and to attempt to draw from 
them conclusions that may be turned to practical ac¬ 
count. 
In a letter to M. Dumas the authors have communi¬ 
cated the results of a series of observations made upon a 
mixture of 220 cubic centimetres of distilled water (boil¬ 
ing-point 100° C.) and 215 cubic centimetres of amylic 
valerianate (boiling-point 190° C.). A great constancy 
was observed in the temperature of ebullition and in , 
the ielative proportions of the two liquids that passed 
•over. The results are thus stated:— 
(1.) The boiling-point of the mixture remained constant 
•at 100° C., that is to say, at 90° below the boiling-point 
cf amylic valerianate. 
(2.) The relative proportions of the two liquids con¬ 
densed remained the same as long as the retort contained 
an appreciable quantity of the least abundant of the two 
liquids. 
(3.) This constant proportion was that of 65 to 35 ; or, 
more simply, 13 volumes of water against 7 volumes of 
.amylic valerianate. In weight the proportion would be 
13 to 6. 
BROMINATED CAMPHOR.* 
Professor Deneffe, of Ghent, states (Presse Med. Beige y 
November 19) that for more than two years he has em¬ 
ployed a combination of camphor and bromine, which he 
thinks is entitled to general attention. The celebrated 
chemist Laurent showed that bromine will easily unite 
with camphor at the ordinary temperature, but that the 
product is slowly decomposed by exposure to the air. 
M. Swartz, Professor of Chemistry at Ghent, has shown 
that this body heated in a closed vessel is resolved into 
hydrobromic acid and a crystallized compound which is 
monobromized camphor [camphre monobrome), a body dif¬ 
fering only from ordinary camphor by the substitution of 
an atom of bromine for an atom of hydrogen. It is a. 
perfectly crystallized substance, fusible at 76° C. and 
boiling at 274°. At Professor Swartz’s request, M. 
Deneffe has investigated the therapeutical properties of 
this body, and has found it to be an excellent sedative 
for the nervous system. Ho intends shortly to publish 
his cases in proof of this, and, in the present communi¬ 
cation, furnishes one of these, in which excitement of 
the nervous system passing into true delirium tremens 
was effectually relieved. lie prescribed it in the form 
of pills, seventy grains being made into thirty pills, of 
which one was given every hour until twenty had been 
taken. For three days longer from forty-five to sixty 
grains were given in the twenty-four hours, the quan¬ 
tity being diminished from forty-five to thirty grains 
daily for a week longer. The recovery was progressive 
and stable. 
THE ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION OF CALCAREOUS 
SUBSTANCES, SUCH AS ARE FOUND IN THE 
ORGANISM. 
BY M. HAHTIXG.fi 
M. Harting announces in a preliminary note that he 
has succeeded in imitating the greater number of the forms 
which carbonate of lime assumes in the organism, such 
as biliary and other concretions, the various forms of 
otolites, pearls, coccolites, the spicules of the alcyonaria, 
the various substances which form the shells of mol¬ 
luscs, the calcification of cartilage, the calcareous couches 
of the scales of osseous fishes, etc. Ho has not yet suc¬ 
ceeded in imitating the pieces of the tegumentary skele¬ 
ton of the echinodermata, or the osseous substance of 
the vertebrate skeleton. His method of procedure was 
to imitate nature in regard to the length of the process. 
He formed the calcareous combinations in organic fluids 
by means of double decomposition, retarded by very 
slow diffusion. The paper is not yet ready in all its 
details .'—Journal of the Chemical Society. 
METHODS FOR DETERMINING THE QUALITY OF 
CASTOREUM. 
BY M. HAGEIt. 
M. Hager gives the following methods for deter¬ 
mining the quality of castoreum :— 
(1.) The taste of Siberian castoreum is much more 
pronounced than that of Canadian, in consequence of its 
greater richness in castorine, of which it contains 4-6 
per cent., whilst Canadian contains but l - 98 per cent. 
The castorine may be easily obtained by exhausting the 
castoreum with pure benzine, and evaporating the pro¬ 
duct upon a watch-glass, when the castorine will be left 
mixed with a certain quantity of volatile oil. 
(2.) Treated with chloroform, castoreum yields a 
sepia-brown resin, which has a stronger odour, and is 
more viscous in the Siberian than in the Canadian. 
(3.) If powdered castoreum be treated first with alco¬ 
hol and afterwards with dilute hydrochloric acid, a 
# Reprinted, from the J\Iedical T imes and Gazette . 
fi Compt. Rend, lxxiii. 361. 
