532 
Manchurian  Soy  Beans. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
July,  1918. 
form.  The  hydrobromide  was  secured  as  a  viscous  syrup  upon 
extracting  this  chloform  solution  with  dil.  hydrobromic  acid,  and 
evaporating  in  vacuo  over  sulphuric  acid.  The  sulphate  and  the  hy- 
drochloride were  also  made,  but  these  also  were  obtained  as  syrups 
only.    No  analysis  was  attempted  of  these  viscous  products. 
Conclusion. 
The  results  of  the  work  show  that,  analogous  to  tropinone,  pseu- 
dopelletierine  gave  two  stereoisomers  upon  reduction.  Similar  to 
the  two  isomers  secured  by  the  reduction  of  tropinone,  one  of  these 
isomers  when  converted  to  the  tropic  or  mandelic  acid  ester  had  no 
mydriatic  properties,  whereas  the  tropic  and  mandelic  acid  esters  of 
the  other  had  strong  mydriatic  effects.  Use  of  the  physical  prop- 
erties and  methods  of  formation  of  these  isomers  was  shown  to  be 
unreliable  as  a  method  of  predicting  their  probable  physiological 
effects. 
The  author  wishes  to  express  his  gratitude  to  the  Cincinnati 
Board  of  Health,  in  whose  laboratory  he  was  given  the  opportunity 
to  determine  the  physiological  effects  of  these  alkaloids. 
Cincinnati,  Ohio. 
OIL  CONTENT  OF  MANCHURIAN  SOY  BEANS.1 
By  Consul  A.  A.  Williamson,  Dairen. 
The  Dairen  mills  state  that  they  are  able  to  express  about  12  per 
cent,  of  oil  from  soy  beans,  and  the  extraction  mill,  it  is  stated,  ob- 
tained 20  per  cent.  But,  as  it  is  axiom  that  48  kin  of  beans  make  a 
4-kin  cake  and  4  kin  of  oil,  the  average  proportion  of  oil  obtained 
cannot  exceed  one  twelfth,  or  8^3  per  cent.  In  a  long  series  of 
chemical  analyses  (119)  to  determine  the  oil  content  of  beans,  cover- 
ing several  years  and  all  important  production  points,  none  contain- 
ing full  20  per  cent,  of  oil  were  found.  The  oil  content  varies  con- 
siderably with  the  place  of  production,  weather  during  growing  sea- 
son, etc.,  but  just  what  the  causes  are  is  not  yet  apparent,  probably 
soil  and  weather  being  the  most  powerful  determining  factors.  The 
highest  oil  content  found  in  the  series  was  19.88  per  cent,  in  a  sam- 
1  Supplementing  report  published  in  Commerce  Reports.  See  also  report 
on  the  methods  of  making  soy-bean  oil,  American  Journal  of  Pharmacy, 
February,  1918,  p.  139. 
