500        Recent  Literature  Relating  to  Pharmacy.    {A  October.^™* 
are  fully  warranted  in  calling  in  question  the  results.  One  is  the 
more  inclined  to  do  this  because  in  another  paragraph  we  are  told 
that:  "  Almost  all  bacteria  which  I  have  had  in  cultivation  in 
recent  years  form  a  branched  mycelium  in  course  of  time,  especially 
all  bacilli."  We  are  also  rendered  suspicious  by  the  statement  that 
species  of  Aspergillus  and  Mucor  may  appear  in  the  form  of  amoeba. 
It  is  possible,  of  course,  that  bacteria  are  only  "  incompletely  known 
fungi,"  but  up  to  this  time  the  evidence  is  certainly  not  very  con- 
clusive, and  to  the  writer  it  seems  not  at  all  improbable  that  they 
may  have  had  quite  a  different  origin,  at  least  many  of  them. — 
Erwin  F.  Smith,  in  The  American  Naturalist,  Vol.  XXXIII,  p.  169. 
POISONOUS  GRAINS. 
It  has  long  been  believed  that  the  fruit  of  Lolium  temulentum  is 
poisonous,  and  chemists  have  had  something  to  say  about  its  toxic 
principles.  In  the  Journal  de  Botanique  for  August  M.  Guerin  pub- 
lishes  an  article  embodying  the  results  of  a  study  made  at  the  Ecole 
Superieure  de  Pharmacie  of  Paris,  in  which  he  records  the  constant 
occurrence  of  fungal  hyphse  in  the  nucellus  of  the  ovule  and  the 
layer  of  the  caryopsis  lying  between  the  aleurone  layer  and  the 
hyaline  portion  of  the  wall.  These  hyphae,  which  appear  not  to 
have  been  identified  with  any  fruiting  form,  are  referred  to  as,  per. 
haps,  the  cause  of  the  toxicity  of  the  Loliums  in  which  they  occur 
{L.  temulentum,  L.  arvense  and  L.  limcola),  and  they  are  stated  not 
to  have  been  found  in  L.  italicum,  and  only  once  in  L.  pcrenne.  The 
fungus  is  compared  with  Endoconidium  temulentum,  Pril.  and  Delacr., 
found  in  diseased  grain  of  the  rye,  and  believed  to  be  the  cause  of 
some  of  the  cases  of  poisoning  attributed  to  that  grain,  though  it  is 
believed  to  differ  from  the  fungus  named,  and  the  conclusion  is 
reached  that,  unlike  this  species  and  Claviceps,  it  lives  in  the  ma- 
turing grain  symbiotically  rather  than  as  a  parasite. — Abstract  in 
ibid ,  p.  171. 
THE  CHEMISTRY  OF  STROPHANTHUS. 
The  only  strophanthus  preparation  included  in  official  pharmaco- 
poeias is  the  tincture  prepared  from  the  seed  of  Strophanthus  komb'e, 
Oliv.,  according  to  some  pharmacopoeias,  or  from  the  seed  of  S. 
hispidus,  D.  C  ,  according  to  others,  and  it  is  stated  that  the  residue 
of  the  evaporated  tincture  gives  with  sulphuric  acid  a  green  colora- 
tion. 
