JjnMaTCh,w8£m"}    Fraudulent  "Heavy  Calcined  Magnesia"  121 
it  does  not  go  off  in  a  sudden  explosion.  These  crystals  are  not  as 
handsome  as  those  of  the  quinine  bromate ;  they  are  white  and  in 
clusters,  but  are  much  smaller  than  the  others,  and  the  separate  crys- 
tals are  flatter  and  broader. 
Cinchonine  bromate. — In  preparing  this  salt  the  color  of  the  filtrate 
was  observed  to  be  yellow,  and  remained  so,  becoming  very  little 
deeper,  even  after  much  concentration.  The  salt,  while  not  as  diffi- 
cultly soluble  as  the  quinine,  is  more  so  than  the  cinchonidine  salt,  but 
the  product  has  a  slight  yellow  color.  The  bunches  are  smaller  and 
differ  in  shape  from  the  quinine  salt,  but  are  larger  than  the  cinchoni- 
dine. They  give  the  usual  tests  for  bromates,  are  bitter,  and  neutral 
to  test  paper. 
Quinidine  Bromate. — The  color  of  the  solution  was  a  delicate  shade 
of  pink,  but  as  soon  as  heat  was  applied,  it  began  to  change  and  be- 
came blue,  the  color  rapidly  deepening  into  almost  a  black.  In  a 
second  attempt,  the  barium  solution  being  saturated,  the  pink  color 
was  again  obtained.  No  heat  was  applied  but  after  two  days  the  solu- 
tion was  found  to  have  changed  to  the  same  blue  color.  This  salt 
was  also  very  hard  to  crystallize,  on  account  of  its  easy  solubility,  and 
the  difficulty  caused  by  the  change  in  color,  but  a  product  was  finally 
obtained  that  is  colorless.  The  crystals  are  very  much  like  the  others, 
being  needle  shaped,  and  forming  in  clusters,  explosive  on  hot  porce- 
lain, and  of  a  neutral  reaction. 
If  these  salts  should  come  into  use  as  remedies,  they  could  be  easily 
prepared  by  the  above  process.  It  is  possible  that  the  differences  in 
solubility  shown  by  the  bromates  could  be  made  useful  as  a  means  of 
distinguishing  the  alkaloids  of  cinchona  from  each  other.  Lack  of 
time  prevented  me  from  looking  into  this  feature  of  the  subject,  but 
it  is  worthy  of  further  investigation. 
FRAUDULENT  "  HEAVY  CALCINED  MAGNESIA." 
To  the  Editor  of  the  American  Journal  of  Pharmacy  : 
Some  time  ago  we  were  offered  by  an  importing  house  in  a  neigh- 
boring city  what  appeared  to  be  a  very  handsome  article  of  "  Heavy 
Calcined  Magnesia,"  it  being  represented  as  such  by  the  seller,  with 
the  statement  that  it  was  of  English  manufacture.  We  analyzed  the 
sample,  and  thinking  an  error  had  been  made  by  the  vendors,  pro- 
