Am.  Jour.  Pharm.\ 
March,  1897.  j 
F lores  Daturce  Albce. 
143 
It  will  be  wise  to  take  particular  notice  of  this,  because  the 
Chinese  element  in  our  large  cities  amounts  to  something.  Browne 
reports  that  the  drug  is  easily  administered  in  tea. 
I  might  be  allowed  to  remark  that  the  use  of  Datura  as  a  stupe- 
fying agent  is  practised,  on  a  large  scale,  by  all  Asiatics,  not  by 
the  Chinese  exclusively. 
Mr.  Browne's  communication,  with  its  local  color,  disposes  effect- 
ually of  a  doubt  expressed  in  Gehe's  Berichte,  for  September,  1896, 
p.  6.  That  firm  state  that  they  feel  bound  to  call  the  attention  of 
the  public  to  the  irregularity  that  Naou-yang-hwa  is  the  Chinese 
name  of  a  flower,  which  is  mixed  with  aconite  tubers,  and  that  this 
mixture  is  used,  in  powder  form,  in  surgery,  to  alleviate  pain.  Gehe 
further  states :  "  Hanbury  records  that  the  above  name  is  the  Chi- 
nese vernacular  for  Hyoscyamus.  Naou-yang-hwa  and  Nau-young-fa 
{Datura)  are  semi-successful  European  experiments  to  reproduce 
one  and  the  same  Chinese  hieroglyph."  This  seems  to  be  a  small 
matter  and  easily  disposed  of.  Of  greater  importance  is  what  fol- 
lows in  the  same  Berichte,  in  regard  to  Datura. 
Dr.  Pienemann  made  an  analysis  of  the  seeds,  of  the  root,  and  of 
the  leaves  of  Datura  alba  according  to  Keller's  process,  so  that  we 
have  now  a  fairly  accurate  knowledge  of  the  value  of  this  drug. 
Compare  also  a  later  investigation  by  R.  A.  Cripps  in  No.  1290, 
March  16,  1895,  of tne  Pharm.  Journal. 
Dr.  Pienemann  has,  in  all  probability,  exhausted  his  plants  with 
Prollius'  fluid. 
Pienemann  presumed  that  the  alkaloid  he  obtained  was  atropine  ; 
he  intended  to  prove  this  by  Vitali's  test.  He  mentioned  also  the 
hypothetical  "  stramonine ;"  but  Vitali's  test  is  a  test  for  mydria- 
tics in  general,  is  a  group  reagent,  not  an  identity  reaction  for  atro- 
pine only. 
Above  is  said  that  not  as  much  material  could  be  gathered  for 
this  investigation  as  Browne  had  at  his  command.  I  had  about  60 
grammes  of  dry  flowers. 
Browne  found  in  the  dry  flowers,  Chinese  growth,  0485  per 
cent,  of  an  alkaloid  which  he  called  hyoscine. 
I  found  in  flowers  grown  in  parks  in  Chicago,  0-464  per  cent,  al- 
kaloid by  weight.  I  presume  that  Browne's  figures  are  also  obtained 
on  the  balance,  and  not  by  titration  and  calculation. 
Of  course,  the  coincidence  of  these  figures  is  remarkable.    But  it 
