Am'oc°tu,riS2anL''}     British  Pharmaceutical  Conference.  539 
Want  of  space  prevents  further  reference  to  several  other  interesting  features 
of  Mr.  Stanford's  Presidential  Address,  but  we  commend  it  to  the  careful 
perusal  of  all  who  are  interested  in  pharmaceutical  affairs,  as  being  replete 
with  information  and  matter  for  reflection.  At  the  conclusion  of  the  address  a 
vote  of  thanks  to  the  President,  moved  by  Mr.  Reynolds  and  seconded  by  Mr. 
Boa,  was  put  to  the  meeting  by  Mr.  Groves,  and  carried  by  acclamation.  The 
report  of  the  Unofficial  Formulary  Committee  was  then  read  by  Mr.  Martin- 
dale,  stating  that  during  the  past  year  there  had  been  little  material  for  inves- 
tigation, but  that  the  Committee  has  work  in  hand  for  the  future. 
The  reading  of  papers  was  then  proceeded  with.  The  notes  on  Starch 
Digestion,  by  Mr.  G.  A.  Grierson,  had  reference  to  the  relative  digestibility  of 
different  kinds  of  starch,  and  gave  an  account  of  some  experiments  conducted 
by  the  author  with  a  view  of  determining  the  differences  in  this  respect.  The 
result  at  which  he  arrived  was  that  tous-les-mois,  arrowroot  and  potato  starch, 
are  more  readily  converted  by  starch  digesting  ferments  than  the  starch  of 
wheat,  maize,  oats,  or  rice,  the  starch  of  roots  being  general^  more  digestible 
than  that  of  seeds.  The  method  adopted  for  testing  was  to  boil  a  gramme  of 
the  starch  or  meal  with  water,  making  up  the  volume  of  liquid  to  100  cc,  then 
adding  1  cc.  of  pancreatic  essence  to  the  mucilage,  and  noting  the  time  which 
elapsed  before  a  drop  of  the  mixture  ceased  to  give  a  blue  color  with  a  dilute 
solution  of  iodine.  In  the  case  of  tous-les-mois,  this  was  ten  minutes,  and  a 
similar  result  was  obtained  with  arrowroot  and  potato  starch.  With  the  starch 
of  wheat  and  rice  a  distinct  blue  coloration  was  produced  after  two  hours' 
digestion,  and  in  the  case  of  maize  starch  a  blue  color  was  produced  after  a 
much  longer  time.  Prolonged  boiling  of  the  mucilage  was  not  found  to  affect 
these  results.  Similar  differences  were  observed  when  malt  extract  was  used 
instead  of  pancreatic  essence.  The  author  is  of  opinion  that  his  observations 
confirm  Cripps'  recommendation  of  potato  starch  or  arrowroot  for  use  in  test- 
ing the  digestive  efficacy  of  malt  extract.  Temperature  was  found  to  have 
some  influence  upon  the  time  of  digestion,  the  change  being  most  rapidly 
effected  at  ioo°  F.  Above  that  temperature  the  digestion  of  starch  was  much 
lower.  On  varying  the  dilution  of  the  starch  mucilage  it  was  found  that  the 
stronger  mucilage  was  digested  more  rapidly  than  weaker  ;  this  result  being 
probably  due  rather  to  the  dilution  of  the  digestive  ferment.  On  adding  to 
the  mixture  of  starch  mucilage,  and  pancreatic  essence,  a  small  proportion  of 
hydrochloric  acid,  the  conversion  of  the  starch  was  very  considerably  retarded  ; 
a  fact  which  the  author  regards  as  pointing  to  the  probabilitv  that  some  forms 
of  dyspepsia  may  be  due  to  low  alkalinity  of  the  pancreatic  juice  and  its  conse- 
quent inability  to  neutralize  the  acid  contents  of  the  stomach  when  they  are 
emptied  into  the  duodenum.  The  addition  of  sodium  carbonate  to  render  the 
starch  mucilage  slightly  alkaline  had  a  similar  retarding  influence  upon  the 
conversion  of  the  starch.  However,  no  such  retarding  effect  was  found  to  be 
produced  when  alcohol  was  added  to  a  mixture  of  starch  mucilage  and  pan- 
creatic essence.  It  was  noticed  in  the  course  of  these  experiments  that  the 
tint  produced  with  iodine  by  different  kinds  of  starch  differs  considerably,  and 
that  with  some  a  larger  proportion  of  iodine  is  required  to  obtain  the  same 
degree  of  coloration  than  with  others.  Mr.  Grierson  considers  that  this  cir- 
cumstance points  to  the  presence  of  a  reducing  body  in  some  kinds  of  starch 
which  require  larger  quantities  of  iodine  to  produce  an  equally  deep  blue  color- 
