Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  i 
Feb.  1  1890.  ) 
Chemical  Notes. 
95 
ing,  gives  a  blue  color.  Imperatorin,  also,  gives  a  blue  color, 
which  soon  disappears,  especially  on  heating.  Morphine  gives, 
on  warming,  a  dirty  green  color,  which  slowly  disappears. 
Estimation  of  cinchona,  with  petroleum.  Laudrin  (Comptes 
rendus,  through  Pharm.  Centralh.,  1889,  725)  gives  the  following 
method  for  the  assay  of  cinchona  bark:  To  300  gms.  finely 
powdered  cinchona,  75  gms.  soda  and  75  gms.  calcium  hydrate, 
sufficient  water  is  added  to  dissolve  the  former,  and  the  whole 
well  mixed.  Two  litres  of  petroleum  are  then  added  and  the 
whole  heated  to  ioo°  C.  for  20  minutes,  the  liquids  being  well 
shaken.  The  mixture  is  again  treated  with  the  same  quantity 
of  petroleum  and  this  solution  of  the  alkaloids  treated  several 
times  with  water  acidified  with  sulphuric  acid.  The  acid 
liquid  is  then  carefully  neutralized  with  ammonia,  when,  on 
cooling,  90  per  cent,  of  the  alkaloids  separate.  The  mother 
liquor  is  then  precipitated  with  soda,  the  alkaloidal  mixture 
converted  into  the  sulphate  and  weighed. 
Abnormal  Occtirre?ice  of  Cholesterin.-—] .  B.  Nagelvoort  (Nieuw 
Tijdschr.  voor  Pharm.,  them,  en  Toxikol.,  1889,  305)  noticed, 
when  analyzing  some  cod-liver  oil,  needle-shaped  crystals 
mixed  with  small  truncated  crystals,  in  place  of  the  usual 
glossy  leaflets.  The  crystals  gave  the  cholesterin  reaction, 
with  sulphuric  acid  becoming  reddish-brown  and  changing 
on  addition  of  water  to  a  dirty  green. 
Composition  of  Oil  of  Betel  Leaves. — Prof.  J.  F.  Eykman's 
results  with  this  volatile  oil,  distilled  by  himself  from 
fresh  leaves,  which  had  been  in  part  reported  in  1888, 
have  been  communicated  to  the  German  Chemical  Society 
(Berichte,  1889,  pp.  2736-2754).  The  oil  was  pale  greenish- 
yellow,  became  golden-yellow  and  brown  on  exposure,  was 
slightly  levogyre  and  had  the  spec.  grav.  0-969  at  150  C. 
Caustic  potassa  removed  from  the  oil  chavicol,  a  phenol  of 
spec.  grav.  1*030  at  150  C,  boiling  between  2360  and  2380  C, 
and  having  a  peculiar  odor,  somewhat  resembling  that  of 
creasote;  its  composition  is  C9H10O;  its  aqueous  solution  is 
colored  blue  by  ferric  chloride,  the  color  disappearing  on  the 
addition  of  alcohol;  its  constitution  is  expressed  by  the 
formula  C6H4<^  Jryv    The  crude  chavicol  seems  to  contain 
