AmAJp°iUiir;5oi?rm'}    Recent  Literature  Relating  to  Pharmacy.  195 
Museum,  South  Kensington,  for  examination  and  classification, 
and  as  a  result  considerably  over  3,000  specimens  of  mosquitoes 
have  been  received  at  the  museum.  The  work  of  identifying 
and^  describing  the  specimens  was  at  first  entrusted  to  Mr.  E. 
E.  Austen,  the  dipterist  on  the  museum  staff,  but  he  joined  the  City 
Imperial  Volunteers  as  a  soldier  and  naturalist.  Mr.  F.  V.  Theo- 
bald, one  of  the  few  men  in  England  who  have  studied  mosquitoes, 
has  carried  on  the  work  in  Mr.  Austen's  absence,  and  is  now  engaged 
in  the  preparation  of  a  monograph  on  mosquitoes,  based  on  the 
collections  at  the  museum.  The  combined  collections  contain  a 
large  number  of  species,  the  majority  belonging  to  the  genus  Culex. 
Mr.  Theobald  has  completed  the  genus  Anopheles y  which  is  the 
medium  by  which  the  malaria-parasite  is  transmitted  from  man  to 
man.  The  genus  is  represented  in  the  museum  by  twenty-two 
species,  ten  of  which  are  new  to  science.  The  Anopheles,  unlike  the 
Culex,  does  not  appear  to  have  a  wide  distribution  in  regard  to 
species,  although  the  genus  is  world-wide.  One  of  the  greatest  dis- 
tances between  any  two  localities  for  the  same  species  is  Formosa 
and  the  Straits  Settlements.  A  long  series  sent  from  the  Straits 
Settlements  contained  sixty-six  Anopheles  and  seventy-two  Culex. 
Some  species  of  Culex  seem  to  have  a  very  wide  distribution.  Thus, 
one  species  has  been  sent  from  Japan,  Formosa,  Hong  Kong,  Malay 
Peninsula,  India,  South  and  West  Africa,  North  and  South  America, 
West  Indies  and  Gibraltar.  The  Culex  is  innocent  of  malarial  pro- 
pensities, so  that  interest  is  centered  on  the  Anopheles,  and  the  next 
thing  we  have  to  learn  after  Mr.  Theobald  has  completed  his  classifi- 
cation is  whether  all  the  species  are  malaria-carriers.  The  subject 
is  one  which  pharmacists  of  an  inquiring  turn  ol  mind  may  find  it 
advantageous  to  follow,  and  even  the  enterprising  will  find  it  not 
unprofitable. — (Editorial  in  Chem.  and  Drug.,  1900,  p.  547.) 
VEGETABLE  ALKALOIDS,  DETERMINATION    OF,    BY  MEANS  OF  THE 
QUANTITY  OF  ACID  REQUIRED  TO  FORM  NORMAL  SALTS. 
In  previous  investigations  it  has  been  customary  to  disregard 
the  theoretical  quantity  of  acid  required  to  combine  with  the  various 
alkaloids,  and  a  process  has  generally  been  considered  satisfactory 
if  the  end  reaction  is  sharp  and  concordant  results  are  obtained. 
This  gives  considerable  trouble  in  forensic  and  pharmaceutical  work 
where  the  quantity  of  available  alkaloid  is  small  and  very  dilute  acid 
