circular, in cross section. Their walls are very thin. With the vessels are associated delicate liber cells and canaliculi, which contain the dark yellowish-brown resinous matter which is sometimes transfused into the vessels and stains them deeply.

The cells of the cortical layers vary in size and shape from precisely similar cells to those of the central portion to the compressed cells of the outermost portion. In no case do they present special features other than already noticed. It follows, as a matter of course, from the circular, or oval, cross outline of the parenchymatous cells that their adhesion to each other is very incomplete. What would otherwise be intercellular spaces are filled, sometimes with intercellular substance of a complex and very variable character, and sometimes with a finger-like protrusion of one of the contiguous cells. This latter is the most rare occurrence by far. The behaviour of the intercellular substance with the usual reagents is perplexing and somewhat contradictory. In many cases nitrate of silver stains it intensely; in other cases, in the same section, this reagent appears inert. Magenta usually, but not invariably, stains it intensely. Iodine always stains it yellow. A solution of iodine and iodide of potassium in water dissolves it and isolates the cells. Sulphuric and nitric acids, in a dilute form, attack it very slowly. Benzole and alcohol have no sensible action upon it.

The starch granules present are usually separate granules, modified in shape by pressure within the cell, with a distinct punctate, often radiate, hilum; and are intensely bi-refractive, giving the usual black cross with polarized light.

The sphæraphides abundantly present are remarkable for their great size and beauty, and are arranged linearly by the side of the vascular bundles, and distributed, also in linear series, through the central and innermost cortical portion of the root. Each sphæraphide is contained in a delicate cell, a little larger than itself, and containing a hyaline semi-fluid matter, apparently protoplasmic. The projections of the compound crystal are coated with some substance which can be intensely stained with nitrate of silver if very carefully applied in a weak solution. The isolation of these special cells and their contents is perfectly easy; maceration in water containing a little potash is sufficient, or, and this is not difficult, the cells being large, they may be isolated by simple dissection. Solution of gum arabic in water, to which has been added either camphor or arsenious acid, is the best medium in which to mount either the isolated sphæraphidian cells or sections of the root. The latter do not mount satisfactorily.

MAGNOLIACEÆ.

The Fruit of Magnolia Tripetala. Wallace Procter. (Amer. Journ. Pharm., xliv., 146.) The author has submitted to examination the fruit of the Magnolia tripetala, or umbrella tree, a habitant of North America. He obtained a crystalline principle readily soluble in alcohol, ether, chloroform, and benzine; analogous to, but not identical with, liriodendrin (the bitter principle of the tulip poplar). This new substance he names magnolin. There is also present a solid resin, precipitable by sub-acetate of lead, a soft pungent resin, closely allied to the crystalline principle, fixed oil, volatile oil, gum, and glucose.

PAPAVERACEE.

The German Opium of 1871. J. Jobst. (Neues Repert. f. Pharm., xxi., 1.) Although the past summer has been unfavourable to the poppy plant, the author states that the cultivation has extended, and the quantity of opium produced has increased. Numerous parcels have been sent to the author's firm for purchase, and the quality was for the most part extremely good. It contained 13 to 15 per cent. of morphia, and was therefore superior to the best Eastern opium. He secured some samples, however, which were worthless, and, he has reason to suspect, were only aqueous extracts of the capsule.

In a journey made by the author to the chief districts of opium culture in Asia Minor, he was convinced that the plant in the East had scarcely any advantage in climate over that of Germany. The principal gain is in the relative cheapness of agricultural labour.

The author brought home seeds from the best Oriental plant, and sowed them in his own land. The resulting plant differed somewhat from the native, but the opium produced was rather less, and the quality was very nearly equal.

Opium Culture in Germany. Dr. C. O. Harz. (Zeitschr. oestr. Apoth. Vereins, and Pharm. Journ., 3rd series, ii., 223.) Experiments made at the acclimatization fields, near Berlin, proved that the giant, the blue, and the white poppy were best suited for the production of seed on that soil; these three varieties were therefore planted on a well-manured sandy soil, and the opium obtained therefrom showed all the external qualities of a good Smyrna sample. The results of analysis were as follows.

The last sample was in too small a quantity to give exact results. In 1866, several experiments made near Berlin, viz., at Pankow, Charlottenburg, and Hermsdorff, yielded opium containing 10 per cent. of morphia.

MENISPERMACEÆ.

Cissampelos Pareira-Pareira brava. E. R. Squibb, M.D. (Proc. Amer. Ph. Ass., 1872, 500.) The writer has been familiar with this drug, as met with in America, for more than five-and-twenty years, and supposed he knew the substance with some degree of accuracy, as its appearance was more uniform than that of most drugs. It however never had more than a very general agreement with any of the descriptions given of it; and physicians generally found it only efficient in doses very much larger than those prescribed in books.

It has so happened that in the New York market the trade in this drug has been largely confined to one drug house, and its appearance, as met with there, is identical with occasional samples seen from other American cities. Some ten years ago, the annual sales here did not exceed 300 or 400 pounds, and the price was 15 to 20 cents. A Portuguese merchant, stimulated by this high price, imported a lot of some 10,000 pounds, and this supplied the market for years, at a much reduced figure. Another lot of about half as much shared the same fate, and fell into the same hands. The fate of these two lots, and the glut of the market, seems to have stopped importation entirely, and by 1871, when the annual sales had reached three to four thousand pounds, the supply became exhausted. In resorting to foreign markets it was found scarce, and to be had only in small lots, and these, on arriving here, were held at seventy-five cents to a dollar a pound. In looking critically through one of these small lots as a purchaser, the writer was surprised to find nearly one-half of it so entirely different from any hitherto seen, that he rejected it, and at once pronounced it a fraudulent adulteration or substitution, made in the interest of the scarcity and high price, and carefully selected out for purchase that only which he had seen before. Some specimens of the supposed fraudulent pareira were, however, taken for examination, and were

found to agree well with some of the older descriptions. A plate given by Pomet in his "History of Drugs," published in 1737, and a close examination of the structure, etc., convinced the writer that this was the true root of Cissampelos Pareira, and that what he had heretofore seen was the stem.

In a critical review of the descriptions of Wood and Bache, and Pareira, these descriptions were found to apply to both, as nearly as such descriptions generally do to foreign drugs, but that they applied much better to the ligneous woody stem, which is comparatively insipid and probably inert. The root is very much. darker, almost black externally, and both the annular and vertical wrinkles are very much larger and more prominent. It occurs in shorter sections than the stem, and gnarled pieces are found eight inches to a foot in diameter. The texture is far less compact than that of the stem, while the beautiful arrangement of the consecutive rings seen in a cross section, which requires a glass in the compact stem, is well seen with the naked eye in the root. The sweetish and afterward bitter taste of the woody stem is very feeble, and even when in the finest powder, it yields very little extract to any menstruum. The taste of the root is, however, very much stronger, and yields at least twice as much extractive matter to the menstrua.

Pareira. Microscopical Characters. H. Pocklington. Pharm. Journ., 3rd series, iii., 1.) The author considers that much of the so-called Pareira root of British pharmacy is really the stem, generally of Cissampelos Pareira, but often of some other species. The structure of this drug is exceedingly interesting and characteristic. The author describes the Cissampelos Pareira brava from a portion of a stem about half an inch in diameter.

Medulla. The medulla is very visible to the naked eye, is often very eccentric, and throws out radiating processes (medullary rays) to the bark. These are also visible without a lens. The cells of the medulla are of medium size, are somewhat irregular, and variable in size and shape; some contain a darkish yellow colouring matter, nearly all contain starch. The starch granules are very variable, both in size and shape. The large ones may be best described as flatly compressed lenticular granules, with a strongly marked longitudinal hilum. By polarised light these granules give a decided single black cross. The smaller granules are much too variable to be grouped under any one characteristic, unless it were rounded-off polyhedrons. Acicular raphides, or more correctly perhaps, as they have not pointed ends, elongated prismatic

raphides, are contained in specialized cells near the exterior of the medulla, and very occasionally, but they are then much smaller, in the cells of the medulla itself. The true medulla cells are distinctly pitted with oval pits, the cell walls are slightly coloured yellowish brown, and are evidently considerably thickened by secondary deposits. They are generally egg-shaped, often globose; towards the circumference they become more angular, and when the medullary rays strike off, become much longer in proportion to their other dimensions.

Medullary Rays.-These are, as has before been stated, very well marked. Their cells are somewhat loosely attached to each other, and are somewhat less angular than usual. Raphide-receptacula abound in the rays.

Vascular Bundles.-Owing to the great size of the medullary rays, the wood masses are well isolated on two sides. They are composed of porous wood fibres and pitted vessels; these latter being of the large size common to all climbing plants. The wood fibres are themselves of the nature of vessels, from the largeness of their central cavity and the small extent to which their walls have been thickened. They are fragile, adhere closely to each other, and are of considerable length, slightly tapering towards each end, oval in cross section, and closely pitted. The pits are usually in the centre of a relatively large ring, and are oval; they do not contain either starch or raphides. The vessels vary much in size, and are exceedingly interesting. The largest are reticulated in an intricate manner; the pits oval, and in a central bordering follow the pattern of the reticulation somewhat closely, the axis of the pore lying often parallel with the course of a supposed spiral wound within the cell. The ends of these ducts are, as Quekett remarked long since, somewhat flattened; are often closed with a double septum, or more correctly with septa, being the unabsorbed membrane of the respective cells. The reticulations on these septa are often very remarkable, and resemble very closely those of Sanseviera quineënsis, being much more elaborate and less regular than those of the spiral cells of orchids, with which most microscopists are familiar. In the older ducts the membranes between the reticulations often have been absorbed, and we have a true reticulated fibrous vessel. In the smaller ducts these reticulations are not easily discernible, sometimes they are absent. The polariscopic reactions are very marked; few slides would be more beautiful than a good longitudinal section mounted in balsam, and viewed with the aid of a blue selenite, whose optic axis is inclined 13° to 27° from the plane of primitive polari