783 
CASE EOE A BENEVOLENT FUND. 
TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL. 
Sir,—I beg to acknowledge the receipt of the following subscriptions in an¬ 
swer to my appeal on behalf of a family left destitute by the death of the father, 
who had been a member for a long period, but was not so at the time of his 
decease. 
Further aid would be most acceptable. 
Yours respectfully, 
Birmingham, May dth, 18G7. Wm. Southall. 
Thos. Harvey, Leeds ....£200 
J. Watts, Esq., London ...100 
A Friend.0 5 0 
T. H. Hills, Esq., Oxford Street 110 
W. H. Smith, Walworth ..050 
W. Warner, Piccadilly . . 
C. T. Palmer, Birmingham . 
K. D. Commans, Bath . . 
A. Bishop, London . . . 
.£050 
.050 
.050 
.110 
ABSTRACTS AND GLEANINGS FROM BRITISH AND FOREIGN 
JOURNALS IN BOTANY, MATERIA MEDICA, AND THERA¬ 
PEUTICS. 
Poisoning' from PJicotine. 
A patient was brought to the General Hospital in Vienna, in the wards under 
Professor Oppolzer’s care, in what seemed to be a tetanic condition, having been 
found so on his bed, when he had lain down to rest a short time. He was sense¬ 
less, but after the injection of ^ gr. of morphia in solution, in about an hour he 
began to move his head and gradually his body, without, however, coming to 
consciousness. An enema of water and vinegar was then administered, when 
vomiting ensued, and with a small amount of greenish fluid, eight or ten small 
pieces of tobacco leaves were ejected. 
The patient recovered, and said that he had been in the habit of chewing an 
ordinary cigar, and had lain down with some of the leaves in his mouth. Albu¬ 
men was found in the urine, the next day after admission, but none subsequently. 
The patient left the hospital on the seventh day after admission .—American 
Medical Record. 
Beetroot Sugar. 
M. Robert de Seclawitz has invented a method which presents more than 
usual novelty. Instead of compression, he depends upon diffusion for the ex¬ 
traction of the saccharine juice. The beetroots are not rasped into pulp, but 
cut up into slices about an eighth of an inch in thickness. The juice is then 
drawn from these slices by means of water in a series of cylinders called diffusers, 
and the extraction of the sugar is said to be more complete than by any other 
known method. The temperature found to be most favourable for the operation 
is said to be 50° C., or 122° Fahr.; at this heat no swelling of the pectose 
takes place in the intercellular portion of the roots so as to present an obstacle 
to the solution of the sugar in the cells. The pectose itself is not rendered 
soluble, except to a very small extent, only just where the cells have been 
actually cut or broken by the slicing. Another advantage attributed to the new 
method is the greater relative value of the residue; the azotized substances 
which form so important a part of the nutrition of animals remain almost 
Vitirely in the residue, very little indeed passing off with the syrup. Conse- 
