570 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[January 13, 1372 
stance rises to the surface ; the wax is skimmed off and 
run into moulds, in which shape it is exported to all parts 
of the Empire. It would seem that the wax-growers 
find that it does not pay them to reserve any of the in¬ 
sects for their reproductive state, and hence the necessity 
of importing the eggs from Yunnan. 
To this account, Professor Silliman adds the following 
notes in the‘American Naturalist’ for November, 1871:— 
This insect wax is a definite compound somewhat resem¬ 
bling spermaceti in appearance, hut not in composition, 
being a cerotic ether, known as cerotate of ceryl, of the for¬ 
mula C 59 H 118 0o. It is crystalline, and of a dazzling white¬ 
ness like spermaceti, hut more brittle and of a more fibrous 
texture. It does not completely saponify by boiling in 
potash water, hut is completely decomposed when melted 
with potash, yielding cerotate of potassium and hydrate 
of ceryl. It is consumed in China for candles and also 
as a medicine. It melts at about 118° F. It does not 
appear clearly from Mr. Cooper’s statements whether this 
wax is secreted by the insect, or is not rather an exuda¬ 
tion from the stems of the trees punctured by the insect. 
Mr. Cooper plainly favours the former supposition ; but 
other writers of more pretensions to science entertain an 
opposite view. The plant on which the Chinese coccus 
lives is stated to be Ligustruni lucidum . There are several 
sorts of vegetable wax, well known to chemists and new 
to commerce, and we find it stated by the Rev. Justin 
Doolittle, in his ‘ Social Life of the Chinese,’ that the 
“ vegetable tallow ” of China is obtained from the seeds 
or kernels of the so-called “ tallow tree.” But he also 
states that the tallow is hardened by a very hard white 
wax brought from the western or north-western provinces 
of China, which is the very wax described by Mr. Cooper. 
The “tallow ” is not a wax in chemical constitution, and 
is the product of a shrub known as Stillingia sebifera. 
The American myrtle-wax (bayberry tallow) is a solid 
fat, melting at about 118° F., and contains a large quan¬ 
tity of palmitic and a small quantity of myristic acid. 
From its high melting-pomt and general physical and 
chemical properties, we might infer that the white wax of 
China was the product of the coccus rather than of the 
plant on which it feeds, seeing the properties alluded to 
are more like those of beeswax than of vegetable wax 
known as such. 
Professor Westwood, in his ‘ Modern Classification of 
Insects,’ vol. ii. p. 449, says that “ The Coccus ccriferus ,, 
Eabr., described by Anderson in his letters from Madras, 
and by Pearson in the Phil. Trans. 1794, is employed in 
the production of a white wax, the body of the females 
being enveloped in a thick and solid coat of wax 
and the editor of the ‘American Naturalist,’ the well- 
known entomologist, Mr. A. S.Packard, jun., adds, “ It 
is now known that this wax, as well as that of the honey¬ 
bee, is secreted by numerous minute excretory sacs or 
follicles lodged just beneath the skin of the abdomen.” 
COMPARATIVE VALUE OF CHLORAL HYDRATE 
AS A HYPNOTIC. 
Dr. J. Hawkes, the assistant resident physician at the 
Hanwell Asylum, furnishes to the Lancet of January 6th 
some particulars of his experience of the results which 
have followed the employment of chloral hydrate com¬ 
pared with those obtained by drugs which it has in a 
measure superseded. He evidently considers it to be a 
therapeutic agent that requires to be administered with 
great caution. Although in some cases a draught con¬ 
taining half a drachm given at bedtime, or a dose of mix¬ 
ture containing from twenty-five grains to half a drachm 
given three times a day, has allayed the chronic restless¬ 
ness and excitement, in other cases, of paralysis accom¬ 
panying mania in rather elderly persons, with feeble cir¬ 
culation and impaired nutrition, he has been compelled 
to suspend its administration from a decided conviction 
that it was hurtful, and that any amount of insensibility 
produced by it was purchased at too dear a rate, being fol¬ 
lowed by gradual failure of strength and a correspond¬ 
ing advance of the paralytic symptoms. The sedatives 
relied on by Dr. Hawkes when chloral hydrate is contra¬ 
indicated are—liquor opii sedativus, combined with tinc- 
tura hyoscyami, in the proportion of twenty-five to thirty 
minims of the former to a drachm and a half of the latter, 
tinctura hyoscyami alone, or in combination with tinc- 
tura digitalis. In one case of delirium tremens thirty 
minims of liquor opii sedativus with tinctura hyoscyami 
procured some hours’ sleep, after thirty grains of chloral 
hydrate had entirely failed. Dr. Hawkes concludes by 
saying that chloral hydrate is by no means a safe or con¬ 
stant remedy, and that he scarcely thinks the public, 
who so largely consume it, can be sufficiently aware of 
its insidious and dangerous qualities. 
[Although these observations are mainly of medical 
interest, the subject is of such importance that it has- 
been thought advisable to give this brief abstract, as a 
supplement to the information already published con¬ 
cerning chloral hydrate.—E d. Pharm. Jour>\] 
THE WELL WATERS AT WEST NEWTON. 
The following results of a series of analyses of water 
from wells at West Newton have been published in the- 
British Medical Journal for January 6. They show a 
universal pollution by infiltrating sewage from cesspools- 
and similar receptacles, indicated not only by the large 
amount of total solid contents and chlorides, but also by 
the excessive proportion of organic nitrogen, amounting- 
from three to eight times the maximum quantity found 
in water of good quality :— 
Total solid 
Free am 
Organic- 
contents. 
Organic 
monia. 
nitrogen. 
Grains per 
and 
Parts in 
Parts ia 
Rectory stable 
gallon. 
volatile. 
Fixed. 
100,000. 
100,000. 
pump . . . 
68-6 
11-2 
57-4 
•023 
•023 
Rectory cistern 
92-4 
11-9 
80-5 
•003 
•020 
Dye . . . . 
88-2 
13-3 
74-9 
•009 
•063 
Boughen . . 
30Y 
5-6 
24*5 
•006 
•036. 
Melton . . . 
48-3 
4-9 
43-4 
•002 
•02T 
Smith . . . 
93-8 
14-7 
79-1 
•003 
•034 
Maximum quan- 
tities in good 
water . . . 
— 
— 
— 
•002 
•003 
If it be true that typhoid fever and similar diseases- 
are caused by the habitual use of such waters for domes¬ 
tic purposes, the prevalence of these diseases in the- 
neighbourhood of Sandringham and West Newton would 
seem to be easily accounted for. 
DINNER TO EMPLOYES. 
On Saturday, the 6th instant, one of those festivals 
which do so much to preserve good feeling between em¬ 
ployers and employed was held at the Bridge House 
Hotel, London Bridge, where, upon the invitation of 
Messrs. Wright, Sellers and Layman, their employes- 
met those gentlemen at dinner. About thirty-six sat 
down, and a very pleasant evening was spent. The 
chair was occupied by Mr. W. V. Wright, the senior 
partner in the firm. 
Poisonous Effects of Belladonna applied Exter¬ 
nally. —In the Revue Medicate de Toulouse M. Giscaro 
records two cases in which persons had suffered from the 
poisonous effects of belladonna, applied externally. Ira 
one case, where a small patch of belladonna, the size of a 
two-franc piece, had been applied to the temple for a 
neuralgic pain, the patient eight hours afterwards 
showed decided symptoms of atropia poisoning, which 
lasted two hours. In the other case, -where an excessive 
quantity of ointment had been used for a uterine affec¬ 
tion, similar symptoms came on in one hour, but quickly- 
disappeared with the removal of the dressing. 
