Excerpt from Year-Book of Pharmacy: Comprising Abstracts of Papers Relating to Pharmacy, Materia Medica, and Chemistry Contributed to British and Foreign Journals, From July 1, 1876, to June 30, 1877; With the Transactions of the British Pharmaceutical Conference The record of pharmaceutical research forms an important if but a small part of. The scientific literature of the year. A period of bustling activity, embracing as it does the numerous and not wholly unsensational reports on'jaborandi and salicylic acid, has been fol lowed by an interval Of comparatively quiet but none the less valuable research. Many new observations full of interest to phar macists have been made, older ones have been confirmed, others disproved, and fresh light has been shed on subjects which hitherto appeared in an almost hopeless state of confusion. As a striking instance in which skill and perseverance combined have raised an important subject of investigation from a condition little better than chaos to a fruitful field of inquiry, we refer to the chemistry of aconite root, as elucidated by successive annual contributions to the British Pharmaceutical Conference, and especially by the reports pre sented to its recent meeting at Plymouth by Dr. Wright, Mr. Groves, Mr. Williams, Dr. Paul and Mr. Kingzett. The three chemists first named constitute a committee specially appointed at the previous meeting to continue investigations on the aconite bases. From these and former reports it appears that the roots of Aconitum N a pellas contain three distinct alkaloids, viz. Aconitine, 033 h43n012, a highly active crystallizable body, furnishing crystallizable salts; pseudaconitine, C36 h49n On, likewise active' and crystallizable, but not readily yielding crystallized combinations; and an amorphous base with a higher percentage of carbon, yielding non-crystalline salts, and possessing little physiological potency. The amorphous, bitter, inert alkaloid, furnishing well crystallized salts and answering to the formula c31h45n010, which Mr. Groves isolated from one batch of roots (see year-book of Pharmacy, 1875, p. Is now distinguished from the other bases by the name picraconitine. The roots of Aconitum feraa' are shown to contain comparatively large quantities Of pseudaconitine, besides a small amount of aconitine and an amorphous base with a larger percentage of carbon, which, however, does not appear to be identical with the analogous body from Aconitmn Napellus. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.