44 
CARDAMINE AMARA, HORSERADISH, ETC. 
the salt is completely dried, the heat is increased, and the 
tube heated throughout its whole length, so as to expel the 
volatilized sulphur which has condensed upon its internal 
surface. On calcination, the hyposulphite yields sulphur, 
sulphurous acid and a residue of sulphuret and sulphate. 
W hen the tube has cooled, it is again weighed. If the salt be 
pure, the residue should amount to about 44*6 per cent, of 
the salt. The presence of sulphuret in the residue is easily 
determined by treating it with water, and adding a drop of 
solution of subacetate of lead ; that of sulphuric acid, by a 
salt of baryta. Of all the oxysalts formed by sulphur, the 
hyposulphite is the only one which yields sulphur on calci- 
nation. The neutral sulphite of soda (S0 2 ,NaO-f 10HO,) 
which is inodorous, also yields sulphuret ; but on calcina- 
tion it neither gives sulphur nor sulphurous acid, and the 
residue which it leaves amounts to 40*5 per cent. — Ibid, 
from Journ. de Pharm. 
ART. VIII.— OBSERVATIONS ON CARDAMINE AMARA, HORSE- 
RADISH AND MYRONIC ACID. 
By F. L. Winckler. 
The author has examined the dried herb of Curdamzne 
amara, which had been collected just before flowering. 
Its taste was more bitter than acrid. According to his ex- 
periments, it contains a sulphuretted and nitrogenous acid, 
most probably identical or very closely allied to the myronic 
acid of mustard seed, combined in the plant with an organic 
substance, and which, both alone as well as in combination 
with bases, forms with myrosine of yellow mustard seed, 
but not with emulsine of almonds, an acrid volatile oil 
resembling the oil of horseradish. Considering the intense 
bitterness and the slight acridity of the herb, it is nol proba- 
ble that a substance acting the part of the myrosine is pres- 
ent in the herb. 
