426 
Jitglans  Cinerea. 
/Am.  Jour.  Ptaarm. 
I        Sept.,  1893. 
character,  since  it  so  readily  decomposed,  and  polymerizes.  In 
order  to  isolate  this  substance,  other  methods  than  fractional  distil- 
lation under  ordinary  pressure  must  be  resorted  to. 
Pharm.  Laboratory,  Univ.  of  Wisconsin,  Madison. 
JUGLANS  CINEREA,  L. 
By  Elliot  D.  Truman,  Ph.G. 
Contribution  from  the  Chemical  Laboratory  of  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy. 
No.  127. 
This  tree  is  indigenous  to  northeastern  United  States  and 
Canada.  It  perhaps  grows  nowhere  more  luxuriantly  than  in 
central  New  York  State.  Its  abundance  in  that  section  has 
occasioned  the  naming  of  a  sub-tributary,  of  the  Susquehanna,  the 
"  Butternut  Creek." 
The  wood  of  this  tree  is  used  to  some  extent  in  the  manufacture 
of  furniture,  it  being  easily  worked,  very  durable,  and  susceptible 
of  a  fine  polish. 
The  fruit  is  employed  as  an  article  of  food,  both  in  the  unripe 
state,  when  it  is  pickled,  and  as  the  ripened  fruit  in  the  well-known 
butternut. 
The  bark  furnishes  us  a  remedial  agent  of  undoubted  value,  which 
is,  or  has  been,  largely  employed  in  stomach  and  bowel  derange- 
ments, in  this  country  perhaps  more  largely  during  the  1 8th  and 
first  part  of  the  19th  century  than  at  the  present  time. 
This  bark  was  examined  in  1872,  by  C.  O.  Thiebaud,  who  found 
it  to  contain  bitter  extractive  oily  matter  in  large  proportion,  and  a 
volatile  acid,  iu^landic  acid,  crystallizing  in  colorless  tabular 
crystals.  The  ash  was  found  to  consist  largely  of  potassium,  with 
traces  of  sodium,  calcium  and  aluminum. 
Again  in  1874,  the  bark  was  investigated  by  E.  S.  Dawson.  He 
found  it  to  contain  resin,  in  small  proportion,  a  volatile  acid,  and 
the  ash  to  consist  of  magnesium  in  addition  to  the  bases  above- 
mentioned.  These  bases  were  found  in  combination  with  carbonic, 
hydrochloric,  phosphoric  and  silicic  acids. 
The  present  examination  of  this  bark,  having  been  carried  out  in 
a  somewhat  different  manner  from  those  of  Thiebaud  and  Dawson, 
the  results  are  given  for  convenience  in  a  tabulated  form.  There 
were  two  analyses  made,  the  treatment  of  the  drug  being  identical 
in  each  case. 
