ANoVimber,bia89L'}  H yoscine-Scopolamine  Question.  593 
unknown  in  America.  The  attempt  has  recently  been  made  by  cer- 
tain dealers  to  place  the  soy  bean  on  the  market  as  a  new  substitute 
for  coffee,  and  to  sell  it  under  other  names  at  an  exorbitant  price. 
Bulletin  No.  98,  of  the  North  Carolina  Experiment  Station,  re- 
commends soy  beans  as  a  palatable  vegetable  when  prepared  as  fol- 
lows :  Soak  the  beans  until  the  skins  come  off,  and  stir  in  water 
until  the  skins  rise  to  the  surface  and  then  remove  them.  Boil  the 
beans  with  bacon  until  soft,  season  with  pepper,  salt  and  butter,  and 
serve  hot.  If  the  beans  are  green  the  preliminary  soaking  may  be 
omitted.  No  other  references  to  the  use  of  soy  beans  for  human 
food  in  the  United  States  have  been  found. 
Several  of  the  Bulletins  issued  by  the  College  of  Agriculture  of 
the  Imperial  University  of  Japan  contain  valuable  articles  on  the 
soy  bean  and  its  products. 
THE  PRESENT  STATUS  OF  THE  HYOSCINE-SCOPOLA, 
MINE  QUESTION.1 
By  Louis  Merck,  Ph.D. 
Hyoscine  has  been  an  object  of  active  controversies,  more  so, 
probably,  than  any  other  one  of  the  notable  alkaloids.  These  con- 
troversies, after  apparently  becoming  dormant  for  a  time,  have  again 
and  again  sprung  up  and  engaged  scientists  of  note  on  opposite 
sides. 
It  was  from  the  so-called  amorphous  hyoscyamine,  the  mixture 
of  bases  obtained  from  hyoscyamine  seeds,  that  Ladenburg  first 
isolated  a  substance  to  which  he  gave  the  name  of  hyoscine.  The 
same  discoverer  assigned  to  the  newly-found  base  the  formula 
C17H23N03,  thus  claiming  it  as  an  isomer  of  atropine  and  hyoscya- 
mine. Hesse,  on  the  other  hand,  contended  that  the  new  base  was 
possessed  of  the  composition  C17H21N04.  He  also  declared  it  to  be 
identical  with  the  substance  which  E.  Schmidt  had  isolated  from 
scopolia  atropoides,  and  which  had  been  named  scopolamine.  Subse- 
quently, E.  Schmidt  found  the  hyoscine  hydrobromate  of  the  mar- 
kets to  consist  almost  exclusively  of  the  hydrobromate  of  scopola- 
mine. He  does  not,  however,  consider  the  non-existence  of  a  hyos- 
cine C17H23N03  to  be  thereby  demonstrated.  He  argues  in  favor  of 
the  possibility  that  a  base  of  such  composition  may  indeed  occur  in 
1  The  Journal  of  the  Society  of  Chemical  Industry,  June  30,  1897. 
