ON  ACONITIA  AND  ITS  PHYSIOLOGICAL  EFFECTS.  309 
This  white  syrup  of  iodine,  or  iodinised  syrup,  has  sometimes 
an  aroma  of  fruit;  it  is  acid,  unalterable  by  air,  heat  at  100° 
Centigrade  decomposes  it ;  it  contains  much  glycose.  Treated 
with  the  reagents,  it  behaves  like  iodides  in  general. 
These  are  the  facts ;  the  theory  remains  to  be  given. 
Does  the  iodine,  all  or  in  part,  combine  with  the  sugar  C12 
H11011T,  or  to  the  glycose  C12H14OuI,  to  form  iodides  similar  to 
the  iodide  of  starch,  Cl2lI10O10I  ? 
Or  rather,  in  presence  of  sugar  acting  as  a  catalytic 
agent,  should  not  iodine  decompose  the  water  into  its  elements, 
hydrogen  and  oxygen,  and  unite  with  them  to  form  hydriodic 
and  iodic  acids?  If  so,  these  acids,  once  formed,  would  decom- 
pose the  sugar  precisely  in  the  same  way  as  the  mineral  and 
some  other  acids. 
If  not  so,  what  are  these  acids,  and  how  are  they  formed  ?  13 
it  from  the  decomposition  of  the  sugar  or  of  the  water? 
Bromine  acts  upon  sugar  in  the  same  manner  as  iodine, 
with  the  difference  that  the  diverse  phenomena  follow  rnjre 
rapidly. 
Chlorine  acts  upon  simple  syrup  still  more  promptly  than 
bromine;  into  water  freshly  saturated  with  chlorine,  at  a  very- 
cold  temperature,  I  have  thrown  sugar,  and  heated  the  liquor 
as  I  have  described  for  iodine.  In  less  than  half  an  hour  the 
chlorine  had  disappeared,  and  the  liquor  was  acid. 
Chlorine  was  probably  transformed  into  hydrochloric  acid. 
E.  FOUGERA, 
Pharmacien,  New  York. 
ON  ACONITIA  AND  ITS  PHYSIOLOGICAL  EFFECTS. 
By  M.  Ernest  Hottot. 
In  a  former  paper  (see  January  number,  p.  59,)  the  author, 
in  connection  with  M.  Lidgeois,  has  published  some  results.  In 
the  present  paper,  which  is  extracted  from  a  thesis  sustained 
before  the  Academie  de  Medicine  by  M.  Hottot  alone,  the 
author  has  entered  more  fully  into  the  subject,  both  as  regards 
its  preparation  and  physiological  effects.  The  following  method 
of  preparing  aconitia  was  adopted: 
Macerate  the  aconite  root  in  powder  in  a  sufficient  quantity 
