84  Recent  Literature  Relating  to  Pharmacy.  {AFebJ™yT?8a99m' 
Salicylic  Acid  Gauze  is  readily  assayed  by  extracting  the  acid 
with  20-30  per  cent,  alcohol,  concentrating  solution  and  titrating 
with  decinormal  alkali  and  phenolphtalein. 
In  conclusion,  he  finds  commercial  gauzes  are  of  fair  strength  con- 
sidering the  difficulty  of  uniform  distribution  of  the  medicating 
agent  and  the  tendency  to  deterioration  by  age,  due  to  evaporation 
or  reduction.  In  view  of  these  difficulties,  leniency  should  be 
shown  slight  deficiencies  in  strength,  he  suggesting  as  permissible 
minimum  variation,  10  per  cent,  of  the  stated  standard.   H.  V.  A. 
THE  CONSTITUENTS  OF  KOLA. 
C.  Schweitzer  {Pharm.  Zeit.,  1898,  380)  claims  that  the  nitroge- 
nous compound  usually  known  as  kola-red  is  a  mixture,  consisting 
of  nitrogen  free  coloring  matter,  a  nitrogenous  glucoside  and  a 
ferment. 
The  latter  he  separates  from  the  drug  by  digestion  in  20  per  cent, 
alcohol,  pouring  the  filtrate  into  absolute  alcohol  when  the  crude 
ferment  is  precipitated.  This  is  collected,  dissolved  in  water 
and  purified  by  repeated  precipitations  in  absolute  alcohol. 
Its  freedom  from  nitrogen  was  shown  by  fusion  with  sodium,  and 
its  diastatic  action  was  shown  by  conversion  of  sugar  into  glucose 
through  its  agency. 
The  glucoside  was  separated  from  the  residue  left  on  evaporation 
of  the  alcoholic  extract. 
After  removing  the  theobromine,  caffeine  and  sugar  by  solution 
in  alkaline  water  and  precipitation  on  neutralization — the  process 
being  repeated  several  times — the  final  product  was  a  brown  amor- 
phous body,  which,  on  treatment  with  diluted  acids,  yielded  glucose, 
caffeine  and  theobromine. 
Both  caffeine  and  theobromine  are  found  in  kola,  and  an  assay  of 
the  theobromine,  by  addition  of  decinormal  silver  nitrate  and  titra- 
tion of  excess  of  this  reagent  with  decinormal  potassium  sulpho- 
cyanate,  showed  the  relative  amounts  of  theobromine  and  caffeine 
present  in  the  drug  to  be  about  1  to  99  ;  the  total  alkaloidal  strength 
of  the  drug  being  about  0-6  per  cent. 
The  intimate  connection  of  true  kola-red,  caffeine  and  glucose  to 
the  glucoside  suggests  as  the  formula  of  the  latter,  a  combination 
of  three  molecules  of  glucose,  one  of  kola-red  and  one  of  caffeine. 
H.  V.  A. 
