Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  | 
April,  1881.  i 
Physiological  Action  of  C  MoraL 
151 
This  plan  was  adopted  because  it  was  believed  to  present  advantage 
over  the  usual  methods  of  digestion,  or  by  cooling,  as  less  troublesome, 
less  liable  to  error,  which  in  the  case  of  ordinary  digestion  is  apt  to 
occur,  with  an  excess  of  the  salt  (?  Editor),  through  moisture  adhering 
to  the  excess  of  salt  (?)  that  is  filtered  out,  and  also  less  danger  through 
supersaturation,  which  is  likely  to  happen  by  the  hot  process.  More- 
over, it  was  believed  that  it  would  be  better  to  give  solubilities  that 
represent  the  actual  amount  dissolved  under  such  conditions  as  are 
likely  to  exist  in  actual  dispensing  practice. 
NOTE  ON  THE  PHYSIOLOGICAL  ACTION  of  CHLOEAL. 
By  Frederick  B.  Power,  Ph.D. 
In  the  last  number  of  this  journal,  March,  1881,  p.  119,  an  abstract 
of  an  article  is  given  which  appeared  in  the  "  Chemisches  Central- 
blatt,"  1881,  p.  9,  relating  to  the  introduction  by  Tauber  at  the  meet- 
ing of  German  naturalists  at  Danzig  of  two  new  anaesthetics.  The 
anaesthetic  action  of  these  two  long-known  isomeric  organic  compounds,, 
monochlorethylidene  dichloride,  CII3 — CCI3,  and  monochlorethylene 
dichloride,  CHgCl — CHCI2,  coupled  with  the  fact  of  their  yielding  no 
chloroform  by  decomposition  with  alkalies,  appears  to  have  served  as 
an  argument  against  the  correctness  of  the  theory  of  Liebreich,  accord- 
ing to  which  the  physiological  action  of  chloral  was  su^^posed  to  be  due 
to  its  decomposition  into  chloroform  through  the  agency  of  the  alka- 
line blood. 
It  may  not  be  out  of  place,  therefore,  to  call  to  mind  the  fact  that 
the  alkaline  reaction  of  the  blood  is  due,  not  to  the  presence  of  free 
alkali,  but  to  acid  alkaline  carbonates  or  bicarbonates,  which  are 
not  capable  of  effecting  the  decomposition  of  chloral  with  the  forma- 
tion of  chloroform  ;  the  long  since  discarded  theory  of  Liebreich  being 
thus  untenable  upon  very  simple  grounds.  As  the  blood  in  all  parts 
of  the  body  contains  carbonic  acid  gas,  the  venous  relatively  more  than 
the  arterial,  and  in  the  former  case  amounting  to  about  one-third  the 
volume  of  the  blood,  the  presence  of  free  alkali  can  scarcely  be 
presumed. 
To  whatever  cause,  therefore,  the  soporific  action  of  chloral  may  be 
due,  it  follows  that  if  chloroform  is  really  produced,  other  substances 
of  an  unknown  nature  must  be  brought  into  action  effecting  its  decom- 
position, which,  similar  to  the  changes  occurring  in  the  assimilation  of 
plants  with  the  production  of  the  complex  organic  princij^les,  cannot 
as  yet  be  traced  or  represented  by  chemical  formulae. 
