17°  Gleanings  from  the  German  Journals.  {Ara•AI151p8£^,n• 
a  spirit  lamp  or  Bunsen  burner,  a  fine  violet  coloration  appears. — 
Stadelmann,  Sudd.  Apoth.  Ztg.,  1893,  70. 
(2)  If  santonin  be  heated  with  potassium  cyanide  until  a  fused 
mass  results,  a  red  color  appears,  changing  quickly  to  brown-yellow  ; 
the  mass  dissolved  in  water  or  solution  of  potassa  forms  a  brown 
solution  showing  marked  green  fluorescence.  (3)  In  fusing  santonin 
with  potassium  hydrate  a  red  coloration  is  noticeable,  becoming 
darker  by  prolonged  heating  ;  the  aqueous  solution  of  the  fusion  is 
red,  but  changes  through  brown-yellow  to  yellow. — J.  Schermer 
{bJederl.  Tijdschr.  v.  Pharm.)  Apotheker  Ztg.,  1893,  77- 
Theobromine  estimation  in  cacao-beans. — The  beans  with  an  equal 
weight  of  purified  sand  are  finely  comminuted  and  then  six  grams 
of  the  mixture  extracted  with  petroleum  ether  in  a  continuous 
extraction  apparatus  for  ten  hours,  to  remove  the  fat;  the  residue  is 
boiled  for  one-half  hour  with  200  cc.  distilled  water  and  6  gm. 
freshly  prepared  pure  lead  hydrate,  strained,  expressed  and  filtered; 
the  insoluble  portion  is  twice  boiled  with  100  cc.  distilled  water  and 
the  united  filtrates  evaporated  to  10  cc,  transferred  to  a  separating 
funnel  and  agitated  for  three  minutes  with  100  cc.  chloroform. 
After  complete  separation  of  the  chloroform,  requiring  about  three 
hours,  the  chloroform  is  removed  and  the  operation  repeated  three 
times.  From  the  combined  chloroform  solutions  the  greater  por- 
tion of  the  solvent  is  distilled  off,  the  remaining  solution  transferred 
to  a  tared  beaker,  the  flask  rinsed  with  warm  chloroform  and  the 
contents  of  the  beaker  evaporated  to  dryness  in  a  water-bath.  The 
theobromine  is  obtained  in  the  form  of  almost  perfectly  white,  micro- 
crystalline  powder  which,  by  ignition  upon  platinum  foil,  leaves  only 
traces  of  ash. — P.  Suss  [Ztschr.  f  anal.  Chem.)}  Apotheker  Ztg., 
1893,  78. 
Lanainy  patented  as  a  pure  neutral  wool-fat,  is  put  upon  the 
market  as  a  soft,  yellowish,  homogeneous  mass,  melting  at  about  360 
C;  it  has  only  a  faint  odor  indicative  of  its  origin  and  loses  this 
after  some  time  ;  applied  to  the  skin,  this  odor  is  not  persistent ;  it  is 
perfectly  neutral  in  reaction  and  permanent  in  air.  By  mixing  with 
water,  it  changes  to  a  white,  smeary  ointment,  the  surface  of  which 
becomes  brown  on  exposure  ;  it  is  possible  to  incorporate  as  much  as 
four  times  its  own  weight  of  water  ;  by  incorporating  25  per  cent,  of 
water  lanolin  is  obtainable.   Lanain  is  very  quickly  absorbed  by  the 
