26o  Gleanings  from  the  German  Journals.  { ^"kaTis^so^'""' 
washed  with  a  little  absolute  alcohol,  until  they  appear  white,  then? 
recrystallized  from  ether,  and,  in  case  the  solution  was  acid,  are  washed 
with  solution  of  sodium  carbonate,  and  then  recrystallized  from  alcohol. 
By  evaporating  the  wash-water  and  the  etherial  mother- liquor,  another 
small  yield  of  monobromated  camphor  is  obtained.  The  total  yield 
obtained  by  the  author  from  300*0  camphor  amounted  to  340  0  grams. 
The  liquid,  which  distils  over,  and  consists  of  hydrobromic  acid,  bro- 
mine and  chloroform,  may  be  decolorized  with  sulphuretted  hydrogen, 
and  utilized  for  making  potassium  bromide  or  some  other  bromide. — 
Schw.  Wochenschr.  f.  Pharm.^  Feb.  13,  1880,  p.  50. 
Theobromina,  from  Cacao  Shells,  is  obtained  by  Donker,  Treu- 
mann  and  Dra^^endorfF,  by  extracting  them  with  boiling  water,  filter- 
ing, expressing,  precipitating  with  subacetate  of  lead,  removing  the 
lead  with  sulphuric  acid,  filtering,  concentrating,  evaporating  with  cal- 
cined magnesia,  and  extracting  the  residue  with  80  per  cent,  alcohol^, 
which  extracts  the  theobromina.  This  is  then  purified  by  recrystalliz- 
ing  from  water.  By  this  process  4  to  5  kilograms  of  shells  yielded 
I3'5  grams  of  colorless  theobromin. — Pharm.  Ztg.^  Feb.  28,  1880  p. 
125,  from  Jahresber  ueher  d.  Fortschr.  d.  Chem. 
Gastrolobin,  a  New  Glucoside.  — By  extracting  the  leaves  and 
young  branches  of  Gastrolobium  bilobum  with  boiling  water,  treating 
the  evaporated  extract  with  alcohol  in  order  to  remove  gummv  sub- 
stances, separating  the  aqueous  solution  from  a  blackish  resin,  precipi- 
tating with  neutral  lead  acetate  after  adding  a  little  free  acetic  acid,, 
decomposing  the  lead  precipitate  by  dilute  nitric  acid,  filterings  evapo- 
rating the  filtrate,  redissolving  the  extract,  again  precipitating  with  lead 
subacetate,  washing  the  precipitate,  decomposing  under  water  with  sul- 
phuretted hydrogen,  and  evaporating  the  liquid  to  dryness,  F.  v,  Muel- 
ler and  L.  Rummel  obtained  ''gastrolobin,"  as  a  blackish,  brittle,, 
hygroscopic  substance,  having  an  odor  and  taste  resembling  sassafras, 
soluble  in  hot  water  and  alcohol,  precipitated  from  the  aqueous  solu- 
tion by  lead  subacetate,  readily  decomposed  by  boiling  with  minerai 
acids,  and  partially  with  organic  acids,  and  dissolving  in  liquor  ammo- 
niae,  forming  an  intensely  yellow  solution.  The  authors  obtained  a 
yield  of  i  per  cent,  glucoside  from  the  dried  herb,  but  consider  it  pos- 
sible that  the  blackish  resin  mentioned  above  is  a  decomposition  pro- 
duct of  gastrolobin  ;  whether  the  latter  is  the  poisonous  principle  of  the 
herb  must  be  determined  by  future  investigations.  A  similar  poisonous- 
principle  has  been  found  in  other  species  of  Gastrolobium,  in  Oxylo- 
