AFebJr°uarVT?9aoom"}     Recent  Literature  Relating  to  Pharmacy.  jj 
even  when  the  alkaloids  were  mixed  with  decomposing  urine.  For 
mixtures  of  several  alkaloids,  the  process  is  poorly  adapted,  crystals 
from  such  mixtures  having  vague  outlines.  For  the  characteristic 
crystalline  forms  of  the  several  precipitates,  the  reader  is  referred 
to  the  illustrations  in  the  original  article. 
The  writer  finds  that  the  fusing  point  of  the  potassio-cadmic 
iodide  precipitates  of  the  several  alkaloids  is  a  valuable  aid  to 
identity.  The  atropine  precipitate  melts  at  95  °  C,  the  hyoscya- 
mine,  daturine  and  duboisine  precipitates  all  melt  at  86°-87°  C. 
This  leads  him  to  consider  the  last  three  alkaloids  as  identical. 
H.  V.  A. 
THE  OXIDIZING  FERMENTS  OF  ACONITE  AND  BELLADONNA. 
E.  Lepinois  (J.  de  Pharm.  et  de  Chim.,  1899,  49.)  reports  a  micro- 
scopical and  chemical  study  of  the  ferments  found  in  aconite  and 
belladonna.  His  microscopical  investigation  consisted  in  treating, 
sections  of  drugs  with  tincture  of  guaiac  both  before  and  after 
immersion  in  90  per  cent,  alcohol.  The  oxidizing  matter  naturally 
gave  a  blue  coloration  with  the  guaiac  and  thus  the  location  of  the 
ferment  was  readily  determined,  and  was  found  only  in  parenchyma  , 
chiefly  in  living  cells.  None  whatever  was  found  in  the  fibrovascular 
bundles. 
That  the  ferment  was  a  constituent  of  the  juice  of  plants  was 
shown  by  these  coloring  blue  with  tincture  of  guaiac  and  blacken- 
ing with  solutions  of  resorcin,  hydroquinone  and  pyrogallol.  Such 
reactions  failed  with  juices  that  had  been  heated  to  1000  C. 
To  prove  that  this  oxidizing  ferment  performs  its  functions  as  an 
absorber  of  oxygen  from  the  air,  the  writer  placed  a  mixture  ot 
oxidizable  matter  (usually  hydroquinone)  and  the  juice  in  a  flask, 
through  the  cork  of  which  was  passed  a  sealed  glass  tube*  Such  a 
flask  was  allowed  to  stand  twenty-four  hours  in  some  cases,  and  two 
to  three  days  in  others.  Then  the  point  of  the  tube  was  broken  unde  r 
water,  when  the  liquid  passed  in  to  occupy  space  left  by  absorbed 
air.  Results  showed  that  in  a  flask  of  250  c.c.  capacity,  holding  20 
c.c.  juice  and  50  c.c.  of  the  hydroquinone  solution,  the  absorption 
of  gas  ranged  from  5  to  15  c.c.  Oa  the  other  hand,  when  boiled 
juice  was  employed,  no  absorption  was  noted. 
Efforts  made  toward  a  .  quantitative  estimation  of  absorbed 
oxygen  and  evolved  carbonic  oxide  merely  proved  that  such  a  re- 
action does  occur. 
