MISCELLANY. 
Chemical Examination of several species of Meloe. By J. Lavini and 
M. Sobrero. — The fluid which the several species of Meloe excrete 
when touched has, as is well known, a similar effect to cantharides. It 
has long been the custom to submit the living animals to pressure in 
Sardinia, and to employ the expressed fluid when mixed with fat to form 
an epispastic ointment. 
The authors exhausted the coarse powder of several species which, 
occur in Piedmont (M. violaceus 7 M. autumnalis : M. Fucia^ M. puncta- 
tus, M. variegatus, M. scabrosus, and M. majalis 7 ) first with boiling water, 
and then with alcohol and aether. The aqueous solution, which pos- 
sessed acrid properties, was evaporated to the consistence of a thin ex- 
tract, and then treated with aether. The solution was colourless, and 
deposited on spontaneous evaporation white prismatic crystals, which 
were identical with cantharidine. When pure, they were insoluble in 
water, soluble in aether, especially when boiling, in alcohol, sulphuric 
acid, nitric acid, solution of potash, but insoluble in muriatic acid. 
They also dissolved in acetic acid, especially on the application of heat, 
a property which likewise belongs to cantharidine. They fuse, when 
heated on platinum foil to 410°, giving off white vapours; at a higher 
temperature they are decomposed and burn with a white flame, leaving 
a readily combustible cinder. The analysis yielded 6 1 -77 per cent, 
carbon, 6-30 hydrogen, and 32'53 oxygen, results which agree suffi- 
ciently with those of Regnault, obtained in the analysis of cantharidine. 
The powder which had been exhausted with water, and from which 
the aethereal extract had been obtained, yielded a small quantity more 
cantharidine, a green oil easily soluble in alcohol and aether, which pos- 
sessed acid properties, expelled carbonic acid from the alkaline carbo- 
nates, and formed soaps with them; moreover, a yellow oil, soluble in 
aether, but almost insoluble in alcohol ; and finally a white volatile sub- 
stance, crystallizing in warty masses and soluble in very dilute alcohol. 
When the substance which had been treated with aether was extracted 
with alcohol, it yielded mere traces of the substances soluble in aether, 
already mentioned. — Chem. Gaz. from Journ. de Fharm. et de Chim. 
On Tamarinds (Tamarchinti.) By X. Landerer, of Athens. — 
Every Pharmaceutist knows that the tamarind pulp of commerce is con- 
tained in a broad pod of the length of a finger, with three or six indenta- 
