Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Nov.,  1887. 
Editorial. 
589 
in  former  times  in  southern  Europe,  for  supposed  medicinal  virtues,  as  was 
the  ginseng  of  the  Chinese,  which  sold  at  fabulous  prices. 
Mr.  A.  P.  Brown  exhibited  a  Chinese  medicine  put  up  by  a  Chinese  druggist, 
according  to  a  prescription ;  the  medicine  consisted  of  herbs,  barks  and  portions 
of  a  lizard,  all  in  coarse  and  very  irregular  fragments,  and  was  used  as  a  pre- 
ventive and  also  as  a  cure  for  gonorrhoea. 
Prof.  Trimble  showed  a  pair  of  lizards,  as  prepared  by  the  Chinese  for  me- 
dicinal purposes,  brought  from  San  Francisco  by  Dr.  Charles  Schaffer,  of  this 
city ;  they  are  recommended  for  use  to  those  who  desire  to  have  large  fami- 
lies! ! !  The  name,  as  nearly  as  could  be  ascertained  by  the  Doctor,  is  cup-guy.1 
It  was  recommended  that  hereafter  the  museum  be  thrown  open  at  an  early 
hour,  so  that  the  students  could  remain  from  the  quizzes  till  the  meeting 
commenced. 
There  being  no  further  business,  a  motion  to  adjourn  was  carried. 
T.  S.  Wiegand,  Registrar. 
EDITORIAL  DEPARTMENT. 
The  last  of  stenocarpine  or  gleditschine. — After  the  editorial  article,  which 
appeared  in  our  October  number  on  pages  541  to  543,  had  been  written,  we 
observed  that  in  several  journals  the  name  of  the  suspicious  alkaloid  had 
been  changed  from  stenocarpine  to  gleditschine,  and  that  the  source  of  it 
was  stated  to  be  Gleditschia  triacanthos,  Lin.  But  we  did  not  think  it  neces- 
sary to  refer  to  this  species,  since,  thereby,  the  doubtful  character  of  the 
source  was  by  no  means  cleared  up,  even  if  the  tree  should  grow  in  Louis- 
iana as  plentifully  as  the  legend  of  the  discovery  of  the  anaesthetic  effects  of 
the  leaves  would  indicate. 
The  source  of  that  wonderful  alkaloid  has  at  last  been  discovered,  or  rather 
unravelled,  for  we  learn  from  Messrs.  Parke,  Davis  &  Co.,  that  an  investi- 
gation, at  their  laboratory,  of  a  solution  purporting  to  be  a  2  per  cent,  solu- 
tion of  gleditschine  or  stenocarpine,  which  was  supplied  by  Messrs.  Lehn  & 
Fink,  of  New  York,  has  developed  the  fact  that  this  solution,  with  which 
the  experiments  thus  far  recorded  have  been  made,  contains  6  per  cent,  of 
cocaine  and  a  sulphate  of  a  salt  which  further  experiments  is  likely  to  prove 
to  be  atropine. 
F.  A.  Thompson,  Ph.C,  also  reports,  after  careful  experiment  with  the 
leaves  of  Gleditschia  triacanthos,  from  which  gleditschine  or  stenocarpine  is 
claimed  to  have  been  derived,  that  they  contain  only  an  infinitesimal  per- 
xMr.  Stewart  Culin,  of  Philadelphia,  has  kindly  informed  us  that  in  the  dia- 
lect of  Canton,  these  lizards  are  called  kop  kai,  and  at  Pekin  koh  kiai,  and  that 
in  China  they  are  commonly  thought  to  be  a  transformation  of  a  swallow. 
They  are  extensively  used  by  the  Chinese  practitioners  here,  the  surface  of  the 
lizard  being  carefully  scraped  and  the  head  removed,  the  remainder  being 
minced  and  then  made  into  a  tea,  usually  with  other  drugs  ;  they  are  regarded 
as  a  strengthening  medicine  and  as  an  aphrodisise,  and  are  sold  at  from  40  to 
50  cents  per  pair. — Editor. 
