'^'"No°v"ri8^8o^'''"' ;  Gleanings  from  the  Foreign  Journals.  551 
have  succeeded  in  isolating,  and  tor  which  the  nanrie  of  Scillin  is  pro- 
posed, the  name  of  Scillitin  having  been  applied  to  the  bitter,  toxic 
principle.  (The  name  scillin,  as  suggested  by  the  authors,  is  an  unfor- 
tunate one,  having  already  been  applied  by  Merck,  of  Darmstadt,  to  a 
crystallizable,  toxic  principle  [see  "Am.  Jour.  Phar.,"  Aug.,  1879)]. 
The  scillin  of  the  French  authors  was  found  to  be  readily  converted 
into  sugar,  either  by  the  action  of  acids  as  also,  probably,  by  diastase 
or  an  analogous  ferment  contained  in  the  plant.  Being  of  itself  not 
saccharine,  the  bitterness  of  the  squill  is  supposed  to  diminish  in  pro- 
portion to  its  transformation  into  laevulose;  the  easy  change  of  the 
scillin  into  laevulose  explaining  also  why  very  little  of  that  substance 
can  be  found  in  the  dried  powder,  in  which,  on  the  contrary,  sugar  pre- 
dominates. 
The  proportionate  constituents  of  three  bulbs  taken  at  the  same  stage 
of  development  is  then  appended: 
Proportionate  composition.                   Very  bitter  bulbs.  Sligbtly  bitter  bulbs. 
Water,           ....    73*30  yz'oo  77'57 
Cellulose  and  insoluble  salts,       .          i5'59  19*80  12*53 
Scillin,           ....      850  6*84  8*03 
Sugar,       ....           0*17  0*15  o*68 
Soiuble  mineral  matter,         .                 0*32  0*24 
Scillitin, 
Oxalic,  citric  and  malic  acid^ 
Undetermined  substances. 
2*12  o*97  1*19 
For  the  extraction  of  the  scillin  the  expressed  juice  was  neutralized 
by  carbonate  of  lime,  the  decanted  liquid  distilled  in  vacuo  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  little  carbonate  of  lime,  in  order  to  neutralize  the  free  acids, 
and  then  evaporated  nearly  to  a  syrupy  consistence.  By  subsequent 
treatment  with  alcohol,  the  scillin  was  separated  in  the  form  of  a  syrupy 
liquid,  which  was  removed  from  the  supernatant  layer  by  decantation, 
and  purified  by  redissolving  in  water  and  again  precipitating  by  alcohol. 
The  substance  after  successive  treatment  in  the  manner  indicated,  in 
order  to  remove  all  saccharine  and  mineral  matters,  was  finally  redis- 
solved  in  a  little  water,  and  allowed  to  evaporate,  at  a  low  temperature 
in  vacuo.  It  was  thus  obtained  in  the  form  of  a  spongy,  amorphous, 
yellowish-white  mass,  soluble  m  water  in  all  proportions,  but  sparingly 
soluble  in  alcohol.  Its  aquvous  solution  was  found  to  deviate  to  the 
the  left,  and  to  possess  no  reducing  action.  It  is  not  precipitated  by 
neutral  acetate  of  lead,  and  by  the  basic  acetate  only  from  concentrated 
solutions.  Heated  with  nitric  acid  it  forms  no  mucic  acid,  thus  differ- 
ing from  gum,  and  is  not  precipitated  by  ferric  salts,  differing  also  from 
inulin  by  its  free  solubility  in  water. 
