was found that the energy of one part of fat is equal to that of 2.6 parts of starch. W. D. H.

Feeding with Earth-nut and Palm Cake. By M. SCHRODT (Bied. Centr., 1887, 624-626).—The animals employed were cows, and they were fed with palm-nut cake containing 15 per cent. albuminoïds, whilst in the other periods of feeding they received earthnut cake, which contained three times that quantity.

Earth-nut cake cannot be replaced by a similar quantity of palm cake without a loss of milk, fat, and dry matter,; and cotton cake produces the best results of all known cakes. E. W. P.

Change of Chemical Composition of Muscle by Fatigue. By A. MONARI (Gazzetta, 17, 367-385).—In this paper a further account is given of the variation of the chemical composition of muscle induced by fatigue. Full-grown dogs were killed after repose and after protracted exercise, and their muscles separated and worked up by well-known methods. The relation of creatine to creatinine was determined in each case and the results are set forth in extensive tables. The main conclusions arrived at are that (i) the proportion both of creatine and creatinine is increased by fatigue; (ii) in certain conditions of labour, the proportion of creatinine can exceed that of the creatine by one-half; (iii) in some cases the quantity of creatine in the wearied muscle is less than that present in the muscle in a state of repose, but then a greater proportion of creatine is formed owing to the transformation of the one into the other; (iv) that the creatinine is produced by transformation of the creatine; (v) xanthocreatinine is also produced, and in a proportion about one-tenth of the creatinine. V. H. V.

Formation of Xanthocreatinine in the Organism. By A. MONARI (Gazzetta, 17, 360-362).-In this paper in addition to the previous observations (Abstr., 1887, 615) an analysis is given of the compound of xanthocreatinine with zinc chloride, which points to a formula (C2HION,O21)2, ZnCl2. This substance cannot however be completely separated from the similar compound with creatine. V. H. V.

Scatoxylsulphuric Acid and Scatole Pigment. By B. MESTER (Zeit. physiol. Chem., 12, 130-144).-Brieger (Zeit. physiol. Chem., 4, 414) showed that scatole when administered to animals leaves the body in the urine as an ethereal hydrogen sulphate, and the chromogen of a red pigment is often also observed; this occurs also in human urine. J. Otto (Pfluger's Archiv, 33, 614) obtained this pigment from the urine of a diabetic patient in cousiderable quantity, and showed by its reactions and analysis that it consisted of scatoxyl potassium sulphate. In the present experiments, scatole was prepared synthetically by E. Fischer's method (Abstr., 1886, 806), and it was given in doses of 6 grams daily to a dog; it was afterwards found advisable to reduce this to half, as so large a dose caused sickness occasionally but never diarrhoea. Observations were made on the relations of the normal sulphates and the ethereal hydrogen sulphates, but the variations were within normal limits. The.

urine passed during three weeks was collected, and G. HoppeSeyler's method (Zeit. physiol. Chem., 7, 423) for the separation of salts of indoxylsulphuric acid was adopted for the preparation of scatoxyl potassium sulphate, but unsuccessfully, either none of the salt or the merest traces being obtained. The pigment cannot therefore be a compound of scatoxylsulphuric acid, but the chromogen is of an unknown nature. The urine used contained abundance of the pigment, which was formed by adding hydrochloric acid to an alcoholic, ethereal, or watery extract of the evaporated urine. The urine also reduced alkaline copper hydroxide solutions, and was lævorotatory. A series of observations were made on the daily relations of ordinary sulphates to ethereal hydrogen sulphates, and the quantity of pigment present in the urine during the administration of scatole. Of 12 grains given during seven days, not more than one-fifth was passed as scatoxylsulphuric acid. There is a slight increase of ethereal hydrogen sulphates produced in the urine by giving scatole, and the normal sulphates are slightly diminished. After prolonged feeding on scatole, however, the ethereal hydrogen sulphates are diminished in the urine, this may be due to scatole being an antiseptic; moreover the quantity of pigment varies without any fixed relation to the amount of these compounds. The pigment is apparently an oxidation product of the chromogen, as its formation is prevented by the simultaneous action of reducing agents like nascent hydrogen.

Elementary analyses are not concordant, but the author considers that they approach to what would be attained from scatoxyl itself; he considers that the pigment is an oxidation product of scatoxyl with a simultaneous condensation of two molecules. It is amorphous; on heating it loses 10 per cent. of water. A solution of the chromogen at first colourless becomes dark-violet and later brown on exposure to air. It dissolves in hydrochloric and sulphuric acids with a red, and in alkalis with a yellow colour. It is soluble in alcohol, amyl alcohol, ether and chloroform, but not in water. It is apparently unaltered by ammoniacal fermentation.

A certain part of the scatole is found unchanged in the fæces. The result of giving scatole as food thus differs considerably from what follows the administration of indole. The property of the urine in rotating polarised light to the left may indicate that the chromogen is a compound of glycuronic acid analogous to indoxylglycuronic acid. This pigment is perhaps the same as the pigment described in normal human urine under various names-urorubin, uroroseïn, uroerythrin, purpurin, &c.

The effects of administering phenylhydrazinepyruvic acid to animals with their food shows that it is a powerful poison, producing blood in the urine among other symptoms. W. D. H.

Animal Gum. By H. A. LANDWEHR (Pflüger's Archiv, 40, 2137).—Animal gum (Abstr., 1887, 26) is present in greater abundance in foetal life than in extra-uterine life; it is present in the Whartonian jelly, it is in excess in the connective tissues, and the chondrogenous tissue (cartilage) which precedes the long bones appears to

consist of collagen combined with animal gum; the latter compound is replaced by calcareous salts in adult bone. In some animals, as the frog, the gum is derived from the mucinoïd envelope of the eggs; in mammals, from the uterine glands, which are enormously developed during pregnancy. Pathological conditions of the female generative organs are often associated with excess of mucin or other compounds which yield gum; such as ovarian cysts, which contain metalbumin (pseudomucin): goitrous colloïd cysts do not yield gum. Myo. oedema, a disease first described by Gull and Ord in women, is associated with increase of mucin in the cutaneous tissues (Charles, Med.-Chirurg. Trans., 71, 57), and may, perhaps, be associated with disease of the genital organs. Chlorosis is a form of anæmia which seems limited to women at about the age of puberty. The administration of iron in this disease causes great increase in the hæmoglobin of the blood; Hamburger, among others, has shown, however, that little or no proportion of the medicinal preparations of iron is absorbed from the alimentary canal, but iron is absorbed only in the form of organic compounds, such as are formed in the processes of plant life. Moreover, the quantity of iron is only 3 grams in the whole body, and this quantity is taken many times over during treatment. Bunge explains (Abstr., 1885, 574) the usefulness of iron in this affection by its forming iron sulphide in the intestines, removing the excess of sulphur in this way from the body; in chlorosis due to excessive fermentation processes in the alimentary canal, large quantities of hydrogen sulphide are formed, which destroy the organic compounds of iron that form hæmoglobin (hæmatogen); the administration of iron prevents this destruction of the hæmatogen. The limitation of chlorosis to the female sex, and to the time of puberty, leads the author to doubt this explanation. He regards the disease as one produced by excessive development at this period of the substances containing gum necessary for the nourishment of the embryo, and which acts injuriously on the hæmoglobin molecule; iron precipitates the gum in the alimentary canal as a jelly-like coagulum (as it does vegetable gum), and thus excess of gum leaves the body with the fæces.

The hypothesis formerly advanced as to the function of the gum in the stomach requires to be modified as follows:-In the lumen of the gastric glands which is filled with mucus, a ferment is produced by stimulation, which forms lactic acid from the gum of the mucus, and this by acting on sodium chloride produces free hydrochloric acid and sodium lactate; the former is poured into the stomach, the latter is absorbed from the glands. During digestion, the amount of sarcolactic acid in the blood is increased from 0.02 to 0.1 per cent. (Drechsel). In phosphorus poisoning, this acid is found in the urine, and also excess in the gastric juice (Cahn, Abstr., 1886, 1053); the intestinal mucus in these cases remains neutral.

In the intestine, the function of animal gum seems to be to aid the emulsion, and also the absorption of fats; pancreatic juice is not necessary for this purpose; parotid saliva, which although it contains no mucin, contains free animal gum, will emulsify fats.

Thierfelden (Pflüger's Archiv, 32, 619) found that in the mammary

glands milk-sugar is formed by a fermentation process, at the body temperature from a mother-substance which is not glycogen. This substance is animal gum; a watery decoction of rabbit's milk-glands was freed from proteïd by heat, from milk-sugar by two days' dialysis; it was then evaporated to a small bulk, saturated with sodium sulphate, and filtered. The filtrate contained animal gum, and gave the characteristic blue flocculi with copper hydroxide. Probably in the same way that starch is hydrated to form sugar in the intestines, and in the liver again dehydrated to form glycogen, so milk-sugar undergoes similar changes, which after being inverted into galactose in the alimentary canal is absorbed, and then dehydrated in the body, and stored as animal gum. If this is so, chlorotic people should take no carbohydrate food. In flesh feeders, it is probable that gum, like glycogen, is formed from proteïd.

Quantitative investigations on animal gum are at present impossible. The conversion of the gum, C.H10Os, into gummose, C6H12O6, a reducing substance, is slow and incomplete. It is, morever, precipitated at least partially by the precipitants of proteïds, neutral salts, alcohol, copper sulphate, ferric chloride, &c. W. D. H.

[Note by Abstractor.-Myxoedema has been since found to be present in men nearly as often as in women; no constant relation has been found to exist between disease of the generative organs and myxedema; moreover, subsequent analyses have not confirmed Charles's statement as to the high percentage of mucin in the cutaneous tissues.]

Animal Dextran. By L. LIEBERMANN (Pflüger's Archiv, 40, 454-459).—The Schizoneura lanuginosa is a gall-producing louse which attacks elms. In the interior of the gall are found masses of a secretion from the animal's body which are at first clear drops, but when the galls dry up in the autumn, it consists of dirty-brown, irregular masses. The properties of this substance were investigated as follows:-The masses were finely divided, and boiled with distilled water; the resulting greenish-brown cloudy solution was decolorised to a great extent by animal charcoal, and filtered; it was acidified with hydrochloric acid, and precipitated with 96 per cent. alcohol. The precipitate was washed with alcohol, dried over sulphuric acid, and analysed; the substance contained no nitrogen, and the percentage composition corresponds very closely with the formula C.HO,. Its specific rotation is [a] = +156·7. This substance has the physical appearance of gum, is soluble with difficulty in cold, more easily in boiling water; it is insoluble in alcohol and ether, and neutral in reaction. On burning it, it gives out a smell like that of burning paper. It does not reduce copper or bismuth salts. With potash and copper sulphate, a greenish-blue, jelly-like coagulum is formed soluble in hydrochloric acid; from this acid solution, the gum is precipitated by alcohol. In the watery solution, lead acetate gives no precipitate, if alcohol is present, however, as well, it gives a precipitate; iodine gives no colour; picric acid and potash also give no reaction. On heating for a long time with dilute sulphuric acid, a

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substance which reduces copper oxide is formed; it differs from all known gums by its high rotatory power; it seems not to be identical with Landwehr's animal gum, and the name animal dextran (compare Scheibler, Wagner's Jahrsber., 1875, 790) is suggested for it.

W. D. H.

Nephridia and Liver of Patella Vulgata. By A. B. GRIFFITHS (Proc. Roy. Soc., 42, 392-394).-The nephridia were dissected from the bodies of a large number of fresh limpets, and the secretions of the left nephridia examined separately from those of the right nephridia. Chemically, the secretions on the two sides were found to be identical; the clear liquid was first treated with hot dilute sodium hydroxide, and then hydrochloric acid added, and rhombic crystals obtained which gave the murexide test; crystals of uric acid were obtained by evaporating the secretion to dryness; the residue was taken up with absolute alcohol, filtered, dissolved in hot water; on adding excess of acetic acid to this, and allowing the mixture to stand seven hours, crystals of uric acid were obtained. The liver of patella was found to possess the functions of a true pancreas, like the "Cephalopod liver." The secretion converts starch into glucose, it produces an emulsion with fats, and a soluble ferment extracted from the cells of the gland converts fibrin into leucine and tyrosine. The secretion contains proteïds, leucine, and tyrosine, but no biliary acids. Glycogen also could not be detected in either the organ or its secretion.

W. D. H.

Absence of Uric Acid and Alkaline Reaction in the Urine of Carnivora. By G. SANARELLI (Chem. Centr., 1887, 804-805; from Ann. Chim. Farm., 1887, 273--285).-The reaction of urine from two young foxes was found to be strongly alkaline, both after a flesh and after a mixed diet; uric acid was absent and hippuric acid initially present was replaced by benzoic acid. Ammoniacal fermentation quickly set in, although the urine did not contain an abnormally large quantity of bacteria even for acid urine. Albumin, sugar and hæraatin were absent. With a flesh diet, the alkalinity increased, but with a bread diet it decreased and changed suddenly into an acid reaction, although both uric and hippuric acids were absent. The alkalinity was ascertained by means of litmus and not by phenolphthaleïn.

V. H. V.

Presence of Hydrogen Sulphide in Urine. By F. MÜLLER (Chem. Centr., 1887, 807; from Berl. klin. Wochenschr., 24, 405--408 and 436-437).-The formation of hydrogen sulphide in urine from fermentation (hydrothionuria) is doubtless conditioned by microorganisms. It is here shown that its formation is due neither to albumin nor cystin, nor potassium thiocyanate, nor yet to the presence of sulphates. On adding a solution of hydrogen sulphide to normal urine, it is quickly oxidised into water and sulphur, even in absence of air, thus showing that in cases of hydrothionuria the urine must have lost this oxidising property. On the other hand, if hydrogen sulphide is added to urine from which the hydrogen sulphide reaction originally present has disappeared, its presence could be detected for a considerable time; this proves that the bacteria con