Facts and Observations. 
The Use of Digitalis. —Recently a discussion took 
place at the Paris Societe de Therapeutique, on the thera¬ 
peutic influence and mode of administration of digitalis in 
disease. Most of the speakers gave the preference to a cold 
infusion of the leaves over any other preparation, and were 
almost unanimous in condemning digitalin as being dangerous 
and unreliable, as it does not possess the diuretic properties 
contained in the leaves. Dr. Herand, who brought the sub¬ 
ject to notice recommends the following preparation:— 
Macerate for twelve hours twenty-five centigrammes of the 
powdered leaves of digitalis to two hundred grammes of cold 
water. This is then strained and the patient is directed to 
take it in five or six doses, in the twenty-four hours, at some 
distance from meals. This dose, he said, should never be 
exceeded if we wish to avoid its poisonous effects; and the 
quantity he prescribes is quite sufficient to produce the full 
therapeutic action of the drug, beyond which it is needless 
to push it. Dr. Herand considers digitalis one of the best 
diuretics known in affections of the heart; whereas it is 
useless when there is no cardiac lesion, as for instance, in 
cirrhosis, albuminuria, &c . — Medical and Surgical Reporter. 
The Detection of Prussic Acid.—A very simple 
method of showing that there is no free hydrocyanic acid in 
the kernels of peach, cherry, and plum stones, or bitter 
almonds, but that it is formed on heating the same with water, 
is given in the Poly tech nisches Notizblatt . A long strip of 
Swedish filter paper is soaked in the tincture of gum 
guaiacum (1 to 20) and dried. It is next passed through a 
solution of sulphate of copper diluted 2000 times, when this 
paper will not be changed at all in colour. Freshly-pounded 
bitter almonds are put in a two-litre flask with water. On 
suspending in it the strip of test-paper above described, the 
paper will remain white, but on pouring into the flask a single 
crushed bitter almond that has been warmed vrith water, the 
test paper will at once be coloured blue by the hydrocy¬ 
anic acid generated in the flask, without bringing the paper 
in contact with the liquid.— The Chemist and Druggist. 
