182 
Sandalwood  Oil. 
Am.  Jour.  Pbarai^ 
April,  1888. 
For  pastilles  the  proportions  are  :  Saccharin,  3  gm.;  sodium  carbon- 
ate, 2  gm.;  mannit,  50  gm.;  make  100  pastilles,  each  of  which  will 
sweeten  a  glass  of  water.  [Mannit  may  be  obtained  by  treating 
manna  with  boiling  alcohol  and  crystallizing  from  hot  alcohol.] 
Elixir  of  Saccharin. — At  the  Sog,  de  med.  pratique,  February 
2,  1888,  Mr.  Petit  proposed  the  following  formula  for  a  "chartreuse" 
suited  to  diabetic  affections :  Elixir  of  chartreuse,  free  from  sugar, 
100  gm.;  alcohol  of  50  per  cent.,  900  gm.;  saccharin,  3  gm.;  bicar- 
bonate of  sodium,  1.50  gm.  The  soda  is  added  to  neutralize  the 
saccharin,  and  render  the  mixture  soluble.  The  elixir  of  chartreuse 
is  compound  spirit  of  melissa. 
NOTE  ON  SANDAL  WOOD  OIL.^ 
By  Peteb  MacEwan. 
At  the  Evening  Meeting  last  November  there  Avere  amongst  the 
specimens  exhibited  two  samples  of  sandal  wood  oil  which  were  of 
more  than  ordinary  interest.  One  Avas  an  oil  especially  distilled  in 
Mysore  for  the  Museum  of  this  Society,  Dr.  Bidie,  of  Madras,  having 
got  this  done  at  Mr.  Holmes'  request.  This  specimen  is  undoubtedly 
authentic,  and  has  a  special  interest  to  pharmacognosists,  as  hitherto 
there  have  been  some  doubts  in  regard  to  certain  physical  properties 
of  Indian-distilled  sandal  wood  oil.  The  other  specimen  was  an  oil 
distilled  from  the  wood  of  the  Fiji  tree,  Santalum  Yasiy  a  quantity  of  ^ 
which  came  to  the  Museum  from  the  Colonial  and  Indian  Exhibition. 
Mr.  Umney  subjected  some  of  the  wood  to  distillation  and  obtained 
from  it  the  unusually  large  yield  of  6  J  per  cent. 
Sandal  wood  oil  is  one  of  those  which  may  be  said  to  be  chemically 
inactive,  for  with  the  ordinary  essential  oil  reagents  the  color  reactions 
obtained  are  of  little  value  ;  for  example,  with  sulphuric  acid  the  oil 
gives  a  red-brown  coloration,  and  resinifies,  with  nitric  acid  it  gives  a 
light-brown,  and  so  on.  Such  reactions  as  these,  varying  as  they  do 
with  the  proportions  used,  cannot  be  construed  into  anything  valuable. 
I  may  say  at  the  outset,  therefore,  that  the  purely  chemical  tests  have 
been  applied  to  the  specimens  before  us  without  eliciting  any  impor- 
tant difference  between  them,  and  it  will  be  advantageous  to  confine 
this  note  to  a  record  of  the  physical  characters  of  the  oils. 
1  Read  before  the  Pharmaceutical  Society  of  Great  Britain,  at  an  Evening 
Meeting  in  London,  Wednesday,  February  8. 
