'^'^jinejgsJ™  }  Pharmaceutical  Colleges  and  Associations.  333 
Elfred;  Secretary,  Eugene  Soper;  Treasurer,  Geo.  E.  Coulter.  It  is 
intended  to  liold  meetings  on  the  evenings  of  the  first  and  third  Tuesday  of 
eaeli  month. 
.  Pharmaceutical  Society  oe  Great  Britain.— At  tlie  pharmaceu- 
tical meeting  held  March  1st,  President  Greenish  in  the  chair,  Mr. 
Holmes  called  attention  to  a  soft  Columbian  bark,  which  Mr.  Howard  had 
informed  him  was  likely  to  enter  into  commerce  in  large  quantities,  and 
which  yielded  1*56  per  cent,  quinine  sulphate,  1'55  cinchonidine  sulphate, 
nnd  0*25  cinchonine.  The  bark  was  reddish,  had  a  coarse  fibre,  and  the 
leaves  accompanying  it  were  minutely  wrinkled.  The  variety  oblonga  of 
Cinchona  lancifolia,  described  by  Howard  in  1873,  had  a  yellowish  bark, 
less  coarsely  fibrous,  and  the  leaves  were  smooth. 
The  bark  of  Bauwolfia  glabra  is  used  in  Natal,  under  the  name  of  bitter- 
boom,  as  a  substitute  for  cinchona  in  the  treatment  of  fevers ;  and  an  aro- 
matic bark  called  capoche  bark  is  said  to  be  produced  from  a  scarce  tree, 
and  used  in  Belize  for  fevers,  etc 
Mr.  Martindale  called  attention  to  a  test  recently  devised  by  Mr.  Yvon 
for  the  purity  of  chloroform^  and  consisting  in  a  strongly  alkaline  solution 
of  potassium  permanganate  (1  part  permanganate,  10  parts  potassa  and  250 
jmrts  water),  wliich  in  contact  with  the  chloroform  should  retain  its  violet 
color  for  ten  minutes.  Four  samples  prepared  from  methylated  spirit,  two 
from  pure  spirit,  and  one  from  chloral,  would  not  stand  this  test ;  ether 
a,nd  alcohol,  as  well  as  other  impurities,  would  cause  a  reduction,  and  pro- 
longed action  of  the  alkaline  liquid  upon  chloroform  would  break  it  up 
into  potassium  formate  and  chloride.  On  purifying  it  with  this  test,  the 
chloroform  was  free  from  disagreeable  odor,  and  on  evaporation  left  no 
amylic  alcohol  impurity. 
Professor  Redwood  observed  that  at  the  time  when  the  additions  to  the 
British  Pharmacopoeia  were  under  consideration,  Professor  Christison 
had  suggested  that  the  cause  of  the  change  in  chloroform  was  an  impurity, 
probably  nitric  acid,  in  the  oil  of  vitriol  used  in  the  purification.  Prof. 
Redwood  had  satisfied  himself  that  the  presence  of  a  very  small  quantity 
of  nitric  acid  in  the  oil  of  vitriol  used  would,  in  a  short  space  of  time,  pro- 
duce decomposition ;  this  fact  seemed  to  have  been  recognized  by  manu- 
facturers, and  chloroform  now  supplied  was  less  liable  to  change.  He 
doubted  the  necessity  of  adding  a  little  alcohol  to  the  chloroform  in  order 
to  preserve  it.  The  importance  of  the  subject  could  not  be  overestimated 
so  far  as  regarded  chloroform  to  be  used  for  anaesthetic  purposes. 
A  paper  by  Mr.  J.  C.  Thresh  was  read  on  the  constituents  of  Zingiber  offi- 
cinale^ augmenting  his  investigations  made  in  1879  (see  "Amer.  Jour. 
Phar.,"  1879,  j),  519).  The  neutral  resin  has  the  empirical  formula 
C16H24O3,  and  is  slowly  acted  upon  by  melted  potassa,  yielding  most  prob- 
ably protocatechuic  acid.  The  acid  resins  were  separated  by  fractional 
precipitation  with  basic  lead  acetate.  Resin  a  is  hard,  brittle,  jet-black, 
has  the  composition  Q^^.\^r^,^0^(i^  yields  amorphous  compounds  with  bases, 
and  on  fusion  with  potassa  an  acid  reacting  with  ferric  chloride  like  pro- 
tocatechuic acid.    Resin  /?  is  red-brown,  so  soft  as  to  be  easily  indented  by 
