Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
;  June,  1910. 
Progress  in  Pharmacy. 
263 
varieties  was  reversed.  The  correspondent  also  points  out  that 
the  buchu  market  in  London  mainly  depends  on  the  American 
demand  {Chem.  &  Drug.,  London,  1910,  March  5,  p.  338). 
Coto  Bark. — An  editorial  in  the  British  Pharmaceutical  Journal, 
1910,  v.  30,  p.  231,  asserts  that  true  coto  bark  has  long  been  un- 
obtainable in  commerce,  and  it  is  generally  understood  that  the 
article  now  in  use  is  paracoto  bark,  which  possesses  similar  proper- 
ties, though  not  yielding  identical  chemical  products.  But  even 
the  paracoto  bark  has  recently  become  scarce,  and  there  are  at 
present  two  false  barks  in  commerce,  which  differ  essentially  from 
the  genuine  coto. 
Cixchoxa  Assay. — Bernard  F.  Howard,  commenting  on  a 
recent  paper  by  Engelhardt  and  Jones  who  assert  that  "  in  most  of 
the  cinchona  barks  the  relation  of  the  percentages  of  the  four 
principle  a1kaloids  of  the  drug  is  almost  constant,"  expresses  the 
belief  that  there  is  an  immense  variation  in  the  proportions  of 
the  four  common  alkaloids  in  different  samples  of  cinchona  bark. 
This  is,  perhaps,  best  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  a  considerable 
number  of  well  known  Dutch  analysts  in  Amsterdam  publish  about 
once  a  month  an  official  list  of  analyses  of  samples  of  bark  up  for 
sale,  and  a  study  of  these  analyses  will  show  at  once  not  only  a 
great  variation  in  the  percentage  of  total  alkaloids  in  various 
samples  of  barks  but  also  great  differences  in  the  proportion  of 
quinine  present  to  cinchonidine,  cinchonine.  and  quinidine  (The 
Pharm.  /.,  London,  1910,  p.  504). 
Cod  Liver  Oil. — An  editorial  discusses  the  economic  conditions 
prevailing  in  the  cod  liver  oil  market  and  points  out  that  the  price 
of  Norwegian  cod-liver  oil  has  appreciated  more  than  25  per  cent., 
as  Lofoten  fishing  has  proved  very  irregular,  and  although  the 
number  of  fish  caught  was  quite  up  to  the  figures  of  the  previous 
year,  the  production  of  medicinal  cod-liver  oil  is  3,756  barrels  or 
4,357  hectolitres  less.  The  general  opinion  in  Norway  is  that  the 
livers  will  be  leaner  next  season  {Chem.  &  Drug.,  London,  1910, 
March  26,  p.  62). 
Ergot. — An  abstract  from  an  article  by  A.  T.  Livingstone  (Med. 
Rec,  Jan.  29,  19 10,  through  B.  I.  M.)  points  out  that  the  peculiar 
province  of  ergot  is  to  stimulate  diseased  rather  than  normal  un- 
striped  muscle.  However  contrary  to  previous  knowledge  of  ergot, 
it  is  practically  true  that  it  acts  on  the  diseased  organs  better  than 
on  normal  ones  containing  unstriped  muscle  fibres.    The  author 
