30 
Facts and Observations. 
The Physiological Action of Tobacco has been very 
carefully studied by Herren Yogi and Eulenberg. They in¬ 
vestigated the physiological action of (1) those bases volatile 
below 160°, and (2) of those volatile between 160° and 250°. 
Both portions act like nicotine, producing contraction of the 
pupil, difficult respiration, general convulsions and death. 
They act more quickly by the stomach than when sub¬ 
cutaneously injected, but even then are not as prompt as 
nicotine. On post-mortem examination the lungs and air- 
passages were found to be highly congested. They think 
that the disagreeable symptoms produced in the incipient 
smoker, and the chronic affections which excessive smoking 
produces, as well as the poisonous effects of tobacco-juice 
when swallowed, are due to the pyridine and picoline bases, 
and not to nicotine. They explain the fact that stronger 
tobacco can be smoked in cigars than in a pipe, by finding 
that more of the volatile bases are present in the smoke of a 
pipe; more especially of the very volatile and stupefying 
pyridine; while in a cigar, little pyridine and much collidine 
are formed. The authors compared this action with that of 
the bases obtained from other plants used for smoking; with 
those from dandelion, willow-wood and stramonium, and with 
pure picoline from Boghead coal. The action was entirely 
similar, but, with the exception of willow-wood bases, they 
produced no contraction of the pupil. Picoline in vapour is 
extremely poisonous, producing great irritation of the air- 
passages, convulsions and death. From these results the 
authors believe that the different effects of smoking opium 
are due simply to a difference in the proportion of the bases 
produced by its combustion.— Arch. Pharm., II, cxlvii., 130. 
Colourless Bile. —In the Coynptes Rendus , March 18, 
M. E. Ritter quotes the results of a series of analyses made 
by him on colourless bile, taken from the gall-bladders of 
men and animals submitted to autopsy. As an instance of 
the composition of such bile (as yet hardly ever analysed, 
since the colourless fluid has been taken to be mucus) we 
mention here the following, in 1000 parts:—Water, 923*3; 
salts, 12*4; fat and cholesterine, 6*8; organic matter, 2*1; 
salts of the bile acids, 55 ' 2. It appears that colourless bile 
and fatty degeneration of the liver are somehow connected 
together.— The Popular Science Review. 
