870  Medical  and  Pharmaceutical  Notes.     |  Al^eJcour192iharm 
It  is  evident  that  the  belladonna  alkaloids  are  saponified  to  a 
considerable  extent  when  their  solutions  are  left  for  several  hours  . 
in  contact  with  ammonia  or  sodium  carbonate,  and  to  an  appreciable 
degree  even  with  sodium  bicarbonate.  It  is  true  that  when  only  a 
slight  excess  of  ammonia  is  added,  and  the  extraction  with  chloro- 
form is  promptly  performed,  the  loss  is  very  little,  but  the  Pharma- 
copoeia is  silent  on  the  question  of  excess,  and  gives  no  warning 
against  delay  in  extracting.  When  the  mixture  becomes  partially 
emulsified,  and  only  slowly  separates,  the  operation  of  extracting 
with  chloroform  is  apt  to  be  somewhat  prolonged.  One's  attention  is 
sometimes  called  to  a  matter  which  is  more  pressing,  and  an  assay 
which  has  begun  is  left  over  for  a  while.  In  any  case,  it  is 
safer  to  use  sodium  acid  carbonate,  and  to  avoid  ammonia  and  alka- 
line carbonate  when  dealing  with  solutions  of  atropine  or  hyoscya- 
mine  salts.  In  the  process  given  for  assay  of  belladonna  leaves,  in 
which  the  drug  is  percolated  with  ether-chloroform  mixture  in  pres- 
ence of  excess  of  ammonia,  the  result  must  be  appreciably  under  the 
truth,  as  extraction  by  percolation  is  not  a  very  rapid  process. 
MEDICAL  AND  PHARMACEUTICAL 
NOTES 
Chenopodium  Oil. — Dr.  Henry  and  Mr.  Humphrey  Paget, 
of  the  Wellcome  Chemical  Research  Laboratories,  contributed 
a  paper  to  the  meeting  of  the  Chemical  Society  of  London 
on  Thursday,  October  20,  192 1,  on  this  subject,  in  which  it 
was  pointed  out  that  the  oil  has  acquired  considerable  importance 
in  recent  years  owing  to  its  use  as  a  remedy  for  hook- 
worm in  the  tropics,  especially  by  the  International  Health 
Board  of  the  Rockefeller  Foundation.  The  oil  has  been  repeatedly 
examined  since  1908,  and  it  is  well  established  that  its  principal  con- 
stituent is  ascaridole,  CioH1602  a  liquid  peroxide  to  which  the  an- 
thelmintic properties  of  the  oil  have  been  generally  ascribed  until 
Hall  and  Hamilton  in  the  United  States  asserted  that  the  lower  boil- 
ing fractions  of  the  oil,  that  is  the  terpene  fractions,  were  more 
active  in  this  respect. 
The  authors  have  therefore  re-examined  the  oil  with  a  view  to 
isolating  its  component?  in  a  pure  state  and  having  them  examined 
