^™  Feb.?i8S8^'^°^  }    Abstracts  from  the  French  Journals.  101 
tare  of  strophanthus.  M.  Blondel  stated  that  fraud  was  already  used 
in  selling  strophanthus,  as  among  the  seeds  he  found  some  whose 
strength  had  been  already  extracted  with  alcohol. — Le  Prog.  Med., 
December  17,  1887. 
Assay  of  Colchicum  Seed. — To  determine  the  amount  of  colchi- 
cine, Mr.  A.  Kremel  exhausts  with  alcohol,  in  a  displacement  appa- 
ratus, 20  gm.  of  the  unbruised  seeds.  After  boiling  for  two  hours, 
the  alcoholic  liquor  is  poured  into  an  evaporating  dish,  with  the  alco- 
hol used  in  washing  the  receiver,  and  25  ccm.  of  water.  The  residuum 
after  evaporation — 10  to  15  ccm. — is  filtered  and  exhausted  with 
chloroform,  which  takes  up  the  colchicine.  It  is  again  dissolved  in 
chloroform,  which  is  finally  evaporated  in  a  water-bath.  The  chloro- 
formic  extract  is  treated  with  water  to  disassociate  the  combination 
C22H25NO^+2CHCP  which  has  formed;  and  is  then  evaporated  to 
dryness. — Jour,  de  Phar.  et  de  Chim.,  January  1,  1888. 
Stack YS  Bulbifera. — The  Arch,  de  Phar.,  December  5,  1887, 
describes  this  "  new  vegetable  of  Japanese  origin,  which  Mr.  Pailli- 
eux  has  been  cultivating  on  his  little  farm  near  Paris.  It  is  a  tuber 
formed  of  successive  nodes,  and  is  from  3  to  5  centimetres  in  length; 
the  tubers  are  the  rhizomes  produced  by  the  plant^  which  attains  to  a 
height  of  25  to  40  centimetres.  It  grows  very  rapidly  and  requires 
little  care;  its  rhizome  has  the  color  and  consistence  of  salsify,  and  its 
taste  resembles  that  of  the  artichoke.  It  may  be  stewed  or  fried,  and 
can  be  eaten  with  vinegar,  like  a  salad.  It  may  become  popular. 
The  editor  of  the  Jour,  de  Phar.  refers  to  it  as  "this  precious 
vegetable.^' 
The  Chemistry  of  Sleep  as  shown  in  the  difference  between  the 
respiratory  combustion  of  natural  slumber  and  that  which  is  produced 
artaficially,  was  considered  in  a  paper  presented  by  M.  de  Saint-Mar- 
tin. He  observed  that  independently  of  the  fasting  condition,  natural 
sleep  lowered  by  50  per  cent,  the  amount  of  carbonic  acid  exhaled, 
and  by  10  per  cent,  the  amount  of  oxygen  absorbed.  During  sleep 
induced  by  morphine  the  proportion  of  carbonic  acid  exhaled  fell 
to  a  half,  and  during  that  produced  by  chloral  or  chloroform  to 
a  third  of  the  quantity  exhaled  during  the  same  time  in  natural 
sleep.  During  chloroform ic  anaesthesia — sufficiently  prolonged — 
the  blood  became  impoverished  in  oxygen,  and  was  charged  with 
an  increased  amount  ofcarbonic  acid. — Le  Prog.  MM.,  December  17, 
1887. 
