^May^f rm>}    Recent  Literature  Relating  to  Pharmacy.  249 
Malabar  could  or  would  supply  us,  and  when  the  price  rose  so  much 
in  London  we  wrote  a  letter  to  Messrs.  Andrew  &  Co.,  accusing 
them  of  cornering  the  drug,  which  accusation  they  never  troubled 
to  deny.  It  was  comparatively  easy  for  this  firm  to  get  hold  of  all 
shipments  of  kino,  they  being  agents  of  the  British  India  Steam 
Navigation  Company,  running  the  only  steamers,  excepting  those  of 
the  Asiatic  Company,  which  called  for  cargo  at  the  Malabar  ports ; 
and  having  to  issue  the  bills  of  lading,  they  would  know  when  any 
of  the  drug  was  for  shipment.  Occasionally,  however,  a'  "  tramp  " 
vessel  loads  cargo  for  New  York  or  other  United  States  ports, 
and  this  would  probably  account  for  kino  reaching  the  London  drug 
market  via  New  York. 
For  some  years  after  the  great  rise  in  price  at  the  London  drug 
auctions,  kino  could  be  obtained  in  small  quantities  in  the  Bombay 
drug  bazaar  at  one-third  of  the  advancing  London  rate,  owing  to 
the  fact  that  a  certain  amount  came  up  from  Malabar  to  Bombay  in 
bugalows  (country  sailing-boats)  shipped  by  natives  to  natives, 
which  consignments  European  houses  would  know  nothing 
about. 
Until  the  demand  for  kino  ceases  altogether,  it  will,  no  doubt,  be 
much  more  profitable  for  the  monopolists  to  buy  all  that  comes  to 
hand,  shipping  only  a  moiety  and  destroying  the  rest,  than  to  ship 
the  quantities  formerly  exported  and  sold  for  just  what  the  London 
wholesale  druggists  cared  to  give  at  the  drug  auctions.  The  mon- 
opoly could  probably  be  broken  by  calling  the  attention  of  the 
Government  of  India  to  the  present  condition  of  the  kino  market, 
for  the  Forest  Department  is  always  willing  to  advise  collectors  how 
to  get  a  better  price  for  produce. 
ON  OXYCANNABIN  FROM  INDIAN  HEMP. 
A  study  of  the  above  substance  is  reported  by  W.  R.  Dunstan 
and  T.  A.  Henry  {Proceedings  of  the  Chemical  Society,  London, 
March,  1898). 
Oxycannabin  is  the  name  given  by  Bolas  and  Francis  to  a  crys- 
talline substance  they  obtained  by  acting  on  the  pharmacopceial 
extract  of  Indian  hemp  with  concentrated  nitric  acid  (Trans.,  1869, 
22,  417  ;  Chem.  News,  187 1,  24,  77).  They  obtained  it  in  the  form 
of  yellow  needles,  melting  at  1760,  and  represented  its  composition 
by  the  formula  C20H20N2Or    In  the  course  of  the  examination  of 
