(568 THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. [January 13 , 1873 . 
point 155°. Collidine, Cgll^N, boiling-point 171*5°, is 
isomeric with xylidine, and is identified by the authors 
with the aldehydin of Ador and Baeyer by its composi¬ 
tion and characters. Parvoline, Cgll^N, boiling-point 
187°-188°, isomeric with cumidine. Coridine, C ]0 H 16 N, 
boiling-point 211°. Rubidine, C U H 17 N, boiling-point 
230°, and, probably, Yiridine, C 12 H 19 N, boiling-point 
251°, were obtained in too small quantities to determine 
their percentage-composition, and were identified by 
their boiling-points and platinum salts. Nicotine was 
carefully looked for, but no trace of it was found, and 
the authors thus fully confirm the observations made by 
Zeise in 1843, that it does not exist in tobacco-smoke. 
They find that it can be easily separated from the pyri¬ 
dine bases, as it forms with zinc chloride a double salt 
difficultly soluble in alcohol, which the pyridine bases do 
not. The formula of this salt is C 10 H 14 N 2 HCIZn Cl 2 + 
8H 2 0. The fact that stronger tobacco can be smoked 
in cigars than in a pipe is explained by the greater pro¬ 
portion of volatile bases present in the smoke of a pipe, 
and especially by the large quantity of very volatile and 
stupefying pyridine, while in a cigar little pyridine and 
much collidine is formed. 
The authors think that the disagreeable symptoms 
which are felt by persons beginning to smoke, and the 
chronic affections which occur in those who smoke to 
excess, as well as the cases of poisoning from swallowing 
tobacco-juice, are due, not to nicotine, but to the pyri¬ 
dine and picoline bases. The idea that they were due 
to nicotine originated in the fact that picoline bases 
having a high boiling-point, such as parvoline, resemble 
that alkaloid greatly both in smell and in physiological 
action. 
The authors did not test the physiological action of 
each base separately, but only that of a mixture of those 
bases which volatilize under 160°, and of those between 
1G0° and 250°. 
Both of these produced, like nicotine, contraction of 
the pupil, difficulty of breathing, general convulsions, 
and death. On post-mortem examination the respiratory 
passages and lungs were found congested. They act 
more quickly when taken internally than when injected 
subcutaneously, but, they do not act so quickly as nico¬ 
tine. 
Plants which contain no narcotic are not unfrequently 
used for smoking, instead of tobacco. The authors tested 
the action of the pyridine bases produced from dandelion, 
willow-wood, stramonium, and of pure picoline from 
boghead coal. These had an action very much re¬ 
sembling, though weaker than, that of the bases from 
tobacco; but with the exception of those from willow- 
wood, they produced no contraction of the pupil. The 
vapour of picoline was also tested and found to be 
poisonous, producing great irritation of the respiratory 
passages, slight convulsions, and death. 
The authors are acquainted with a person who can 
swallow the juice from a tobacco-pipe without being 
affected by it, but they consider that this exception does 
not impair the rule that picoline bases have a powerful 
action on the organism. They also think that the action 
of opium, when smoked, is not due to the alkaloids it 
naturally contains, and that the difference of its action 
from that of tobacco is simply due to a difference in the 
bases which are produced when the two substances are 
smoked. 
CHROMIC ACID AS AN ANTISEPTIC, 
DISINFECTANT, ETC., 
More Especially as Compared with Carbolic Acid.* 
BY JOHN DOUGALL, M.D. GLAS. 
[Continuedfrom page 546.) 
Tower in preventing animalcules .— As a preventive of 
germ life, chromic acid surpasses sixty-six other che¬ 
mical bodies consisting of irritant, narcotic, and nar- 
* Reprinted from the Lancet , vol. ii. (1871) p. 912. 
cotico-irritant poisons, including all the known anti¬ 
septics and disinfectants, except two or three substances, 
with which it has not yet been compared. In this re¬ 
spect it greatly excels carbolic acid, the average pre¬ 
ventive strength of which, in three aqueous solutions of' 
hay, urine, beef-juice, and egg albumen, is only 1 to 400, 
while that of chromic acid is 1 to 3300.* 
Effects on animals. —The results of various experiments 
on rabbits, etc. show that chromic acid, in concentrated 
solutions, is a pure and powerful corrosive of animal 
textures, effecting speedy and complete local disorganiza¬ 
tion. So actively does it destroy the vascular tunics, 
gelatinizing their fluid contents, that absorption is ren¬ 
dered impossible; these, by the merest contact with the 
acid, being converted into consolidated emboli, which, 
choke the capillary passages and preclude further in¬ 
gress. This view is confirmed by, or may be inferred 
from, the fact of the poison not being found in the blood 
or urine. If equal portions of muscular tissue and 
chromic acid be left in contact for about one hour, the- 
whole is converted into a mass like burnt sugar, which, 
is freely soluble in water, rendering it yellowish-brown.. 
Chrome sores .— Through the kindness of Messrs. White,, 
of Shawfield, near Rutherglen, the largest makers of bi¬ 
chromate of potassium in this country, I had an oppor¬ 
tunity lately of examining some of the “chrome sores” 
on the bodies of several workmen. These occur chiefly 
on the hands and exposed parts, and are said to arise- 
from the salt coming in contact with a denuded cuticular 
surface. The first symptom is pain, succeeded by red¬ 
ness ; and latterly the affected part assumes a papular 
or furunculoid form. After the lapse of some days, a 
cylindrical slough or core exudes from the centre of the 
swelling, leaving a deep pit with nearly vertical walls,, 
the bottom of which generally extends through the cutis, 
vera, and not unfrequently into or through some of the 
muscles. The sores are long of healing, doubtless from 
loss of structure, the salt acting like its acid, though with 
less intensity. 
Chromic acid in this form has been said to have a 
strong propensity for the destruction of cartilage, inas¬ 
much as the nasal aim and septum, and even the larynx, 
of workmen employed in the manufacture of bichrome 
are frequently greatly corroded by it. The ulceration, 
has been considered similar to that of tertiary syphilis,, 
and bichloride of mercury recommended as an antidote,, 
and, withal, this absurdity has been promulgated by a 
standard work on chemistry, f From experiments made 
with the acid on portions of the trachea of a cow, the 
reverse is proved to be the case. Indeed, chromic acid 
might rather be said to have a specific action on gelatine 
or muscle, because breaches of surface are here the rule,, 
whereas ulceration of cartilage is the exception. The 
cause of the nasal and laryngeal affection is clearly the 
same as that of the other sores—a cuticular hiatus; and. 
while there seems an additional reason why the nasal, 
walls should be attacked more than other parts, still that 
is fully counterbalanced by the material of which they 
are composed resisting the action of the acid more; hence 
it is seldomer affected. 
During respiration in an atmosphere contaminated 
with floating particles of the chromic salt, these are con¬ 
stantly brought in contact with the anterior nares, etc.;. 
and, dissolving in the nasal secretion, set up irritation, 
which, if prolonged, results in abrasion of the mucous- 
membrane. What follows is plain: each inspiration de¬ 
posits a variable quantity of the salt upon the affected 
part, resulting in ulceration. 
As a test for strychnia .— Chromic acid elicits the- 
coloured reaction in a solution containing -nnuFoo of' 
strychnia. The modus operandi is to put two or three 
* £ On the Relative Powers of Various Substances in Pre¬ 
venting Animalcules.” Churchills. 
f In Meadows’s £ Preservers’ Companion’ (page 152) po- 
tassae bichromas is said to have been recommended as an 
antisyphilitic. 
