As™ptJembe?hiS'}    British  Pharmaceutical  Conference.  469 
Egg-albumin  is  said  to  yield  unaltered  albumin,  alkali  albumin,  proto-albu. 
mose,  a  little  hetero-albumose,  and  some  crystalline  matter  of  an  alkaloidal 
nature  ;  serum-albumin  differs  in  yielding  more  hetero-albumose,  together 
with  a  little  deutero-albumose.  Papain  was  found  to  digest  serum-albumin 
much  more  readily  than  egg-albumin,  yielding  traces  of  proto  and  hetero-al- 
bumose, abundance  of  deutero-albumose,  but  no  peptone.  With  pepsin,  in 
both  cases,  the  digestive  process  was  carried  further,  traces  of  true  peptone 
being  found.  In  the  presence  of  yeast,  as  in  the  maturing  of  koumyss,  the  al- 
bumin of  the  milk  is  partly  changed  into  the  higher  proteids,  but  the  peptone 
stage  is  never  reached. 
NOTE  ON  Oily  OF  EUCALYPTUS. 
By  B).  J.  Parry. 
The  author  has  made  an  examination  of  the  oil  obtained  from  the  leaves  of 
Eucalyptus  toxophleba  of  Western  Australia. 
The  oil  has  a  most  obnoxious  and  uninviting  odor,  and  when  inhaled  induces 
violent  coughing.    Its  specific  gravity  at  ^5  is  '8288.    It  is  faintly  dextro- 
rotary,  about  '5°  for  100  Mm.  On  fractionation  it  yielded  the  following  results. 
It  began  to  boil  at  1600,  rising  rapidly  to  1680.  The  fractions  collected  were  : — 
i68°-i7i°  68  per  cent. 
I7i°-i76°  ........   14    "  " 
i76°-i82°  2    "  " 
i82°-i87°  8    "  " 
Residue  8    "  " 
With  phosphoric  acid  the  oil  simply  became  syrupy.  The  first  fraction  was 
almost  free  from  cineol,  whereas  the  8  per  cent,  distilling  between  i76°-i82° 
was  almost  entirely  cineol.  A  determination  of  this  body  in  the  fractions, 
which  was  necessarily  only  approximate,  showed  that  the  oil  contains  only 
about  15  per  cent.,  certainly  not  more  than  20  per  cent.,  of  cineol.  Whilst 
phellandrene  was  present,  as  identified  by  its  nitrite,  it  did  not  form  anything 
like  the  remaining  80  per  cent,  of  the  oil ;  he  was  unable  to  search  for  any  other 
bodies  except  aldehydes  and  ketones,  the  presence  of  which  was  indicated  by  an 
absorption  by  sodium  bisulphite  of  about  10  per  cent.;  and  for  amyl  alcohol, 
which  has  been  identified  in  traces  in  some  specimens  of  oil  of  Eucalyptus 
globulus.    He  was  unable  to  find  any  trace  of  this  body,  however. 
A  QUICK  POLARIMETRIC  METHOD  FOR  THE  DETERMINATION  OF 
STROPHANTHIN  IN  THE  B.  P.  EXTRACT  AND  TINCTURE. 
By  Edwin  Dowzard. 
The  following  method  will  be  found  useful  as  a  means  of  approximately 
determining  the  amount  of  strophanthin  in  the  P.B.  tincture  and  extract : — 
100  c.c.  of  tincture  is  evaporated  down  to  about  20  c.c.  on  a  water  bath,  2  c.c. 
of  a  solution  of  basic  acetate  of  lead  then  added,  the  mixture  heated  for  a  few 
minutes,  and  filtered,  the  precipitate  being  washed  twice  with  warm  water. 
The  filtrate  and  washings  are  evaporated  to  about  10  c.c.  ard  made  up  to 
exactly  20  c.c.  with  water,  a  portion  of  which  is  passed  through  a  dry  filter. 
The  optical  rotation  of  the  filtrate  is  then  taken  in  a  200  Mm.  tube,  using  an 
instrument  of  the  Laurent  half-shadow  type. 
