NOTES  UPON  AMYLENE. 
169 
M.  Bouchardat  has  lately  announced  that  there  are  two  iodides 
of  calomel — one  which  may  be  called  a  protiodide,  and  the  other 
a  biniodide ;  and  M.  Perrens  has  proposed  to  prepare  the  two 
iodides,  differing  from  one  another  not  only  in  their  physico- 
chemical  character,  but  also  very  probably  in  their  therapeutical 
action.  They  are  prepared  in  the  same  manner,  except  that  one 
compound  is  formed  with  half  the  quantity  of  calomel  which  is 
employed  for  the  other. — British  and  Foreign  Med.  Chir.  Re- 
view, Jan.  1858,  from  Bui.  Gen.  de  Therap.,  Sept.  15th,  1857* 
NOTES  UPON  AMYLENE. 
By  Dr.  Adolf  Schauenstein. 
Immediately  after  the  first  experiments  which  were  made  in 
Vienna  with  the  new  anaesthetic  material,  amylene,  Dr.  Schau- 
enstein obtained  for  examination  some  of  the  preparations 
employed,  both  of  Parisian  and  Viennese  manufacture.  They 
all  appeared  to  be  mixtures  of  solutions  having  different  boiling 
points,  and  the  greater  part  of  the  solutions  was  volatile  at  100°. 
The  most  volatile  part  of  the  distilled  liquid  presented  a  smell 
resembling  chloroform,  so  that  it  seemed  necessary  to  examine 
this  pretended  amylene  for  some  proportion  of  chlorine.  This 
experiment  is  performed  in  the  following  manner.  The  solution 
to  be  examined  is  mixed  with  about  an  equal  volume  of  potash 
or  soda  ley  free  from  chlorine,  and  a  few  drops  of  solution  of 
nitrate  of  silver,  and  then  heated  with  continual  stirring  up  to 
the  boiling  point,  in  which  operation  the  greatest  care  is  taken 
that  too  sudden  an  evaporation  does  not  occur  to  the  solution  to 
be  examined.  If  now  so  much  nitric  acid,  free  from  chlorine,  is 
added  that  the  separated  oxide  of  silver  again  comes  into  solu- 
tion, then  there  remains  (in  case  the  fluid  examined  contains 
chlorine)  the  chloride  of  silver,  in  its  well  known  white  flocculi, 
as  an  insoluble  residue.  A  great  number  of  organic  combinations 
containing  chlorine,  in  which  this  element  cannot  be  discovered 
directly  by  solution  of  silver,  may  in  this  manner  be  quickly  and 
conveniently  tested.  The  specimens  of  amylene  examined  in 
this  manner  by  Dr.  Schauenstein  all  showed  the  presence  of 
chlorine.  The  presumption,  therefore,  formerly  existed  that  the 
amylene  found  in  commerce  was  purposely  mixed  with  chloro- 
