210 
Remarks  on  Digitalis. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
May,  1915. 
magnifying  glass.  The  vapor  will  be  invisible  when  escaping  from 
the  compressor,  but  will  soon  again  be  visible  carried  around  by  the 
air  currents. 
This  vapor  seems  without  doubt  to  be  the  "  perozonide  of  pinene  " 
described  by  Harries,  and,  by  his  investigation  and  the  author's  own 
experiments,  it  can  be  positively  stated  that  its  decomposition  products 
at  ordinary  temperature  on  contact  with  moist  surfaces  are  peroxide 
of  hydrogen  and  the  intermediary  oxy-pinene,  i.e.,  aldehydes  and 
perhaps  ketones  of  pinene. 
To  sum  up  our  present  knowledge  of  oxy-pinene,  then,  it  may  be 
stated : 
1.  When  pinene  or  turpentine  is  oxidized  by  the  air,  ozone  is 
absorbed  from  the  air,  either  in  the  form  of  ozone,  or  the  ordinary 
oxygen  is,  partly  at  least,  transformed  into  ozone. 
2.  When  pinene  is  directly  oxidized  by  ozone  one  or  more  ozonides 
of  pinene  will  result. 
3.  When  either  of  the  above  ozonides  of  pinene  comes  into  con- 
tact with  moisture  a  decomposition  will  take  place,  resulting  in  the 
formation  of  peroxide  of  hydrogen  and  the  intermediary  oxygen  com- 
pounds of  pinene  (oxy-pinenes). 
4.  On  prolonged  standing  or  by  heat  intermolecular  or  auto- 
oxidation  will  take  place,  resulting  in  the  higher  oxidation  products 
of  pinene — pinonic  acid,  etc. 
How  these  properties  of  the  oxy-pinenes  have  unconsciously  been 
taken  advantage  of  during  the  course  of  centuries  for  therapeutical 
purposes  is  a  matter  of  considerable  interest,  and  the  history  of  the 
therapeutical  use  of  oxy-pinenes  is  a  subject  the  author  hopes  he  will 
be  allowed  to  come  back  to  in  the  near  future. 
232  Schermerhorn  Street, 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y., 
March  30,  1915. 
REMARKS  ON  DIGITALIS.1 
By  William  C.  Alpers,  Sc.D. 
It  is  generally  stated  in  text-books  and  also  in  the  United  States 
and  other  pharmacopoeias  that  the  digitalis  leaves  of  the  second 
year's  growth  are  preferable  to  those  of  other  years,  and  that  the 
1  Abstract  of  paper  read  before  the  Pharmaceutical  Section  of  the  Cleve- 
land Academy  of  Medicine,  January  29,  1915. 
