Am  Jour.  Pharm. 
May,  1881. 
Saponin  from  Saponaria. 
273 
kept  salmon  in  cans  till  it  was  putrid,  testing  it  occasionally  for  tin. 
No  trace  of  tin  was  detected.  Nevertheless,  food  should  not  be  allowed 
to  remain  for  a  few  days,  or  even  hours,  in  saucepans,  metal  baking 
pans,  or  opened  tins  or  cans,  otherwise  it  may  taste  metallic.  6.  Un- 
sound food,  canned  or  uncanned,  may  of  course  injure  health,  and 
where  canned  food  really  has  done  harm,  the  harm  has  in  all  proba- 
bility been  due  to  the  food  and  not  to  the  can.  7.  What  has  been 
termed  idiosyncrasy  must  also  be  borne  in  mind.  I  know  a  man  to 
whom  oatmeal  is  a  poison.  Some  people  cannot  eat  lobsters,  either 
fresh  or  tinned.  Serious  results  have  followed  the  eating  of  not  only 
oatmeal  or  shell-fish,  but  salmon  and  mutton ;  hydrate  (misreported 
nitrate)  of  tin  being  gratuitously  suggested  as  being  contained  in  the 
salmon,  in  one  case.  Possibly  there  were  cases  of  idiosyncrasy  in  the 
eater,  possibly  the  food  was  unsound,  possibly  other  causes  altogether 
led  to  the  results,  but  certainly,  to  my  mind,  the  tin  had  nothing  what- 
ever to  do  with  the  matter. 
In  my  opinion,  given  after  well  weighing  all  evidence  hitherto  forth- 
coming, the  public  have  not  the  faintest  cause  for  alarm  respecting  the 
occurrence  of  tin,  lead,  or  any  other  metal  in  canned  foods. — Phar. 
Jour,  and  Trans.,  March  8th,  1884,  p.  719. 
SAPONIN  FROM  SAPONARIA  OFFICINALIS. 
By  C.  Schiaparelli. 
The  analyses  hitherto  made  of  saponin  obtained  from  different  plants 
are  not  very  concordant,  the  results  varying  indeed  from  47*52  per 
cent.  C.  and  7' 16  H.  (Overbeck)  to  52-63  C.  and  7'48  H.  (Rochleder 
and  Schwarz).  Moreover  the  experiments  of  the  last-named  chemist 
lead  to  the  conclusion  that  the  carbohydrate  obtained  in  the  first  instance 
from  saponin  by  decomposition  with  acids,  is  not  grape-sugar,  but  a 
body  convertible  into  that  sugar  by  the  further  action  of  acids, — and 
consequently  that  saponin  is  not  a  glucoside  but  an  amyloid.  To 
throw  further  light  on  this  matter,  the  author  has  endeavored  to  deter- 
mine whether  the  products  extracted  from  different  plants  and  included 
under  the  name  of  saponin,  are  really  identical,  and  in  the  present 
paper  he  describes  the  results  obtained  with  saponin  from  Saponaria 
officinalis. 
The  root  of  this  plant,  dried  and  coarsely  pounded,  was  boiled  for 
three  days  in  a  reflux  apparatus  with  alcohol  of  90°  ;  after  which  the 
boiling  alcoholic  decoction  was  separated  and  left  for  some  days  in  ;i 
18 
