April 27, 1372.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
8G5 
ten hours. As many of these cohs as are necessary are 
used for the purpose of generating steam to run the 
shelling-mills; the surplus is sold, given away, or even 
cast out into places to decay. By collecting the ashes 
from these waste cohs, together with the ashes from the 
furnaces, it will ho readily seen, by reference to the pre¬ 
ceding analyses, what large quantities ot potash salts 
may be produced from these now worthless cobs. 
That the supply of cobs can never fail, the following 
statistics will show:—• 
The corn crop of the United States for 1870, was 
1,09-1,000,000 bushels, of which amount 
Illinois yielded . . . 201,378,000 bushels. 
Indiana ,, 113,150,000 „ 
Missouri „ 94,990,000 „ 
Iowa „ 93,415,000 
502,933,000 
» 
Making a total of. . 
in four States alone. 
The corn crop of the whole country, for 1871, was 
1,100,000,000 bushels, which, at 14 pounds cobs to the 
bushel, will yield 15,400,000,000 pounds, or 7,700,000 
tons cobs, containing an average of three-quarter per 
cent.fpure carbonate potassa. We have the enormous 
quantity of 115,500,000 pounds of that valuable alkali 
lost to commerce annually, which, if thrown into trade, 
would add very largely to the general resources of the 
country.— Amer . Journ. Pharm. 
CRYSTALLIZED DIGITAL!NE.* 
by m. nativelle. 
The process adopted by the author for obtaining crys¬ 
tallized digitaline, a magnificent specimen of which ac¬ 
companied the memoir, consists, in the first place, in 
exhausting the digitalis in 5Of alcohol, instead of water, 
as ordered in the French Codex. He found that while 
the product obtained by an aqueous maceration con¬ 
tained chiefly an amorphous principle, soluble in all pro¬ 
portions in water, which he proposed to call digitaleine, 
the residue, usually rejected as useless and completely 
exhausted, contained nearly all the active crystallizable 
principle, together with another very bitter principle, 
approaching it in its properties, but not crystallizable. 
The alcoholic tincture so prepared was distilled, and the 
residue of the distillation concentrated to a weight equal 
to that of the digitalis originally used. Here the 
author introduces a modification based upon, what is 
generally observed "where several principles exist simul¬ 
taneously in the same plant, that they exercise towards 
each other a particular influence, which determines or 
favours their reciprocal .solution in the same liquid. This 
faculty, however, is manifested chiefly in a concentrated 
solution, being weakened or completely annulled .when 
the solution is diluted. Thus, a concentrated solution of 
opium may contain, not only the principles dissolved 
directly by the water, but also more or less resin carried 
into solution by the influence of those principles, and 
which separates when the solution is diluted by a certain 
proportion of water. So with digitalis, in the concen¬ 
trated solution that represents the product of evapora¬ 
tion after the alcohol is driven oft, is found in solution, 
not only the principles directly soluble in water, like 
digitaleine, but other principles, such as digitaline and 
digitine, which, insoluble themselves, are kept in solu¬ 
tion by the influence of the preceding in a concentrated 
solution. If, however, this solution be diluted by three 
times its weight of water, a gradually augmenting vis¬ 
cous deposit is formed, which represents nearly the 
whole of the digitaline, accompanied, it is true, by digi- 
* Extracted from the Report by M. Buignet, on behalf of 
the Commission, recommending the award ot the Orfila 
prize (6000 francs) to the Author. 
f The British Pharmacopoeia orders rectified spirit. 
tine and colouring matter, but freed from the digitaleine 
and other soluble principles—according to the author 
the chief obstacles to crystallization. 
In order to extract from the viscous deposit the twd 
crystallizable principles that it contains, it is to be drieo 
in the open air, upon folds of filtering paper, and after¬ 
wards treated with twice its weight of boiling proof 
spirit. The filtered solution, left in a cool place, is 
quickly covered on the surface with crystals, which alsc 
form on the side of the vessel. This goes on for eight 
or nine days before the liquor is completely exhausted. 
The crystals are then separated; and after washing with 
weak alcohol are nearly completely colourless. The 
digitaline is then separated from the digitine by succes¬ 
sive treatment of the crystals with chloroform, evapo¬ 
rating the chloroform, treating the deposit with eight 
times its weight of boiling 90 per cent, alcohol, adding a 
little washed animal charcoal, filtering and leaving to 
cool in a partially stoppered flask. The pure digitaline 
is then deposited in fine wdiito and. shining needles, 
grouped around the same axis. By this means, the two 
principles are effectually separated. The part dissolved 
is intensely bitter, giving a wonderfully intense emerald 
green colouration with hydrochloric acid, and having 
such a powerful physiological action that a quarter of a 
milligram is sufficient to produce the ordinary effects of 
digitalis. On the contrary, the part undissolved by the 
chloroform is tasteless, gives no colouration with hydro¬ 
chloric acid, and exercises no appreciable action upon 
the organism. 
In order to verify the results described in the memoir, 
the commission followed the process stop by step, and 
succeeded in obtaining a product identical with the spe¬ 
cimen accompanying the memoir. They also undertook 
a series of physiological experiments, the result of w hich 
led them to the conclusion that the new medicament ap¬ 
peared to produce effects identical with the other prepa¬ 
rations of digitalis, particularly the digitaline of MM. 
Homolle and Quevenne, but incomparably more ener- 
g-etic, while, from the definite nature of the compound, 
more constant results follow its use. 
THE NATURAL HISTORY AND COMMERCE 
OF SPONGES. 
BY JOHN GIBSON.* 
Every schoolboy knows that a tree and a dog belong 
respectively to the vegetable and animal kingdoms; but 
much older and wiser heads have been puzzled _ for 
centuries in trying to settle definitely to which of - ieso 
two kingdoms sponges belong; and although tie 
great majority of zoologists have now relegated them to 
the domains of animality, still there are many who o t 
that they are more at home among the plants, whim a 
third party maintains that their true position is to be 
found in a terra incognita , lying somewhere between these 
two ; that, in fact, the sponge is neither a plant nor an 
animal, but a living organism m which we find certain 
characteristics of both. It is curious to observe> hoy 
opinion on this vexed question has vacillated from the 
remote past down to the present time Aristotle, who 
was the first to make the sponge an object of scientfiic 
investigation, speaks of it as an animal. ^ _d o’ 
he says, “ is a stationary or rooted animal. lne same 
opinion was held bv Pliny, who also tells us that m his 
time some writers divided sponges into male and female^ 
That our earliest biologists should have placed sperioC. 
among animals of scientific 
ward marks—which, m those eai y •> . i 
inquiry, were mainly relied on-sudi as their 
their want of sensation, and their iirflotirriteno.s^ o t shape, 
all seeming to point to their connec , q sway 
table kingdom. Aristotle s views held undispute d . > 
Pharmaceutical Society, April 18tb, 
