550  British  Pharmaceutical  Conference.  {Am'0J™ri884arm* 
wild  and  cultivated  belladonna  plant.  Summing  up  the  results  of  his  re- 
searches, he  stated  that  they  had  shown  that  wild  belladonna  generally 
contains  more  alkaloid  than  the  cultivated,  though  net  to  an  important 
degree,  but  that  the  cultivated  plant  is  the  better  suited  for  the  manufacture 
of  pharmaceutical  preparations  on  account  of  its  greater  uniformity.  He  had 
found  the  leaf  to  be  the  part  of  the  plant  richest  in  alkaloid,  the  root,  fruit, 
and  stem  being  next  in  order.  He  therefore  suggested  that  preparations  of 
belladonna  leaf  should  supersede  those  of  the  root,  except  in  the  case  of  the 
liniment,  and  he  also  advocated  the  introduction  of  a  formula  for  an  alco- 
holic extract  into  the  British  Pharmacopoeia.  With  regard  to  the  time  of 
collection,  Mr.  Gerrard  is  of  opinion  that  the  growth  of  the  leaf  does  not 
affect  the  proportion  of  alkaloid  in  the  root  and  that  the  two  parts  may, 
therefore,  be  collected  without  disadvantage  at  the  same  time.  Closely  con- 
nected with  the  same  subject  wras  the  report  of  Messrs.  Dunstan  and  Short 
upon  the  "  Estimation  of  the  Alkaloids  in  Atropa  Belladonna.^  This  was 
a  summary  of  a  paper  recently  read  before  the  Pharmaceutical  Society, 
describing  a  process  in  which  the  root  is  exhausted  by  hot  percolation  with 
a  mixture  of  chloroform  and  absolute  alcohol,  the  alkaloids  extracted  from 
the  percolate  by  shaking  it  with  water  and  then  withdrawn  from  the 
aqueous  solution  by  agitation  with  chloroform  after  the  addition  of  ammo- 
nia. Next  Mr.  Hasselby  recounted  the  steps  in  an  attempt  to  carry  out  in 
the  garden  attached  to  his  house  in  Hastings  a  suggestion  made  by  the 
President  of  the  Conference  last  year  that  pharmacists  should  as  far  as  pos- 
sible grow  their  own  supply  of  vegetable  drugs.  His  experiments  had  been 
made  upon  belladonna  and  henbane,  the  former  yielding  tolerably  good 
results,  whilst  the  latter  had  not  given  so  much  satisfaction.  The  discus- 
sion that  followed  the  reading  of  these  three  papers  turned  principally  upon 
the  subject  of  cultivation  and  the  effect  of  it  upon  the  active  principles  con- 
tained in  plants;  but  Mr.  Gerrard  also  mentioned  some  experiences  met 
with  in  the  cultivation  of  henbane  that  have  led  him  to  suspect  either  the 
existence  of  three  varieties  or  of  a  hybrid  between  the  two  at  present  recog- 
nized. The  suggestion  as  to  the  substitution  of  leaves  for  the  root  of  bella- 
donna in  making  pharmaceutical  preparations  did  not  appear  to  be  regarded 
with  favor  by  Professor  Redwood,  who  thinks  the  leaves  are  much  more 
liable  to  undergo  deterioration  than  the  root. 
On  resuming  after  luncheon,  the  first  paper  read  was  a  4 1  Report  upon  an 
Investigation  on  the  Chemistry,  Botany  and  Pharmacy  of  the  Strychnos 
Nux- Vomica,"  by  Messrs.  Dunstan  and  Short.  This  was  a  resume"  of  work 
done  with  the  financial  assistance  of  the  Conference,  which  has  formed  the 
subject  of  a  series  of  papers  that  have  already  appeared  in  this  Journal. 
The  principal  points  have  been  the  devising  of  what  the  authors  claim  to 
be  a  simple  and  accurate  process  for  estimation  of  the  alkaloids  of  nux 
vomica  seeds,  in  which  a  mixture  of  chloroform  and  alcohol  is  used  for  their 
exhaustion  ;  the  application  of  the  process  in  the  examination  as  to  their 
alkaloidal  value  of  nux  vomica  seeds  from  various  sources,  with  the  result 
that  of  the  kinds  entering  the  British  market,  the  Bombay  was  found  to  be 
the  richest,  followed  by  Cochin  and  Madras,  whilst  all  the  varieties  contained 
more  alkaloid  than  had  been  previously  supposed ;  a  method  for  separating 
