destroys the tape-worm? This is not improbable, for we know, that all acrid and caustic oils produce this effect. The saccharine substance, which had been dissolved by Saccharine the alcohol at the same time with the resin, gives a slight matter. lemon colour to water. It is reduced to a thick and viscous substance by evaporation. Its taste is sweet, pleasant, and slightly acid. Its smell is nearly similar to that of the juice of apples when evaporated. On being heated it swells up, grows black, and emits a smell exactly resembling that of burned sugar. I found in it perceptible traces of inuriate of potash. Thus it appears there can be no doubt, that this substance is a true sugar, with which an acid, probably the malic, is mixed; but of this I could not satisfy myself by experiment, the quantity being too small. Exp. 3. To obtain those principles of the calaguala root, Root digested which are not soluble in alcohol, I digested in water for in water, after being treated forty eight hours that portion of the root, which had already with alcohol. been treated with alcohol, as has been seen. The colour it imparted to the water was deep, as if it had given out nothing to alcohol. This infusion had no bitter taste, like Properties of that in alcohol; it frothed when shaken; it precipitated this infusion solution of silver pretty copiously in a substance which had all the appearance of muriate of silver. Evaporated in a gentle heat, it left an extract of a brown yellow colour, transparent, very tenacious and stringy, on which spirit of wine had no effect. This extract had a mucilaginous and slightly nauseous taste: mixed with a little sulphuric acid it grew black, and exhaled copious fumes of muriatic acid: put on a redhot iron it swelled up, and emitted a smell similar to that of gums. This matter then appears to be nothing but a mucilage coloured by a small quantity of extractive matter insoluble in alcohol, and mixed with a certain quantity of a muriatic salt, probably with potash for its base. nitric acid. Exp. 4. The root of calaguala thus successively ex- Residuum hausted by alcohol and water I afterward treated with weak treated with nitrie acid, in order to know whether it contained any amylaceous matter. After two days digestion with a gentle beat, I filtered the liquid, which had acquired only a slight amber An alkali added, Precipitated with alcohol. The residuum, amber colour, while the root had become of a pretty bright red. An alkali mixed with this fluid precipitated nothing; but it produced in it a very lively and agreeable violet red colour. The filter too, through which I passed this nitric în fusion, assumed on drying a pretty fine red. The same nitric infusion, being mixed with four parts of alcohol, yielded a light flocculent precipitate of a very fine white colour, which, when separated from the supernatant fluid, and washed with fresh portions of alcohol, redissolved in cold water. This substance had all the appearance of common starch, that had been dissolved in nitric acid, and afterward precipitated by alcohol: but I had not a sufficient quantity, to satisfy myself that it was so in a positive manner. At least there is every reason to believe, that it is not gum, otherwise it would have dissolved in water, and furnished some traces of mucous acid on being treated with nitric acid; but I obtained from it only the oxalic. The nitric acid then, according to all appearance, took up from the calaguala root a certain quantity of amylaceous matter, and a colouring substance insoluble in alcohol, which alka lis turn to a violet. The calaguala root treated by the different reagents menof the whole, tioned above, and afterward dried,, had lost a fifth of its incinerated. weight. All that remained was the woody part, and the earths insoluble in acids. To ascertain the nature of the latter, and pretty nearly their quantity, I burned the resi duum in a crucible till it was completely incinerated; and from about twelve grammes of the root, I obtained half a gramme of ashes, which were composed of carbonate of lime, that the nitric acid had not dissolved, and certainly did not exist in that state in the root itself, with a small quantity of muriate of potash, and some traces of silex. The root treated with the same mensa ferent order. I treated the calaguala root a second time with the same menstrua, but in an inverted order, beginning with water, next employing alcohol, and finishing with nitric acid. By the first operation I obtained the sugar, the gum, part of the salts, and a little colouring matter. By the second I got the resin, and a little of the sugar, that had escaped the the action of the water. Lastly by the third I dissolved the amylaceous portion, and the peculiar colouring substance I have mentioned above. On recapitulating all the products obtained by the dif ferent operations mentioned in the course of this paper, we find, that the root of calaguala is formed of 1. A large quantity of woody matter: Component parts of the 2. A gummy substance, which comes next in point of root. quantity : 3. A red, bitter, acrid resin, the next in proportion : 4. A saccharine matter, tolerably abundant : 5. An amylaceous part, the quantity of which I did not ascertain: 6. A colouring matter soluble in nitric acid, and turning violet on the addition of an alkali . 7. A small quantity of acid, which I could not discrimi nate, in consequence of its being so little, but which I sus pect to be the malic : 8. A tolerably large quantity of muriate of potash : 9. Lastly lime and silex. Of all these substances those soluble in water and alcohol Medicinal are alone capable of producing any effect on the animal eco- parts. nomy. These substances are the sugar, mucilage, muriate of potash, and resin. fern and com. Since the time when I analysed this root at the request of Roots of male Mr. Alyon, I have subjected to similar experiments the mon polypody roots of common polypody and the male fern, and obtained contain the same princi. from them precisely similar principles nearly in the same ples and tanproportions as from the calaguala root. The former roots nin. however contain a small quantity of tannin. Thus the analogy of organization, which led Mr. de Jussieu and Mr. Richard to conclude, that the medicinal virtues of the cala guala root must be similar to those of other ferns, is fully confirmed by chemical analysis. VOL. XXIII.-JUNE 1809. L XIV. XIV: Smut has already been examined imperfectly. Described. Prevented by washing with alkalis. Sout treated with On the Chemical Nature of the Smut in Wheat. By Messrs. THE smut in wheat has already, occupied the attention of several chemists. Parmentier has found in it a fetid, fat, and coally substance. Cornet has observed its oleaginous nature. Girod-Chantrans, in 1804, announced, that it contained also a free, fixed acid, which he supposed to be of a peculiar pature. tu This discovery, announced to the Institute in the autumn of that year, induced Mr. Vauquelin and me to undertake a full examination of this degenerated vegetable matter. It is well known, that the smut is in fact a corruption of the grain, which exhibits within the husk of the seed, instead of a farinaceous substance, a black, greasy, stinking powder, the most decided and dangerous characteristic of which is its being capable of infecting other grains by contact, and imparting to them the property of propagating smutty wheat. It is known too, that washing with lime and alkalis is the most certain method of removing its contagious property, and preventing the disease from being reproduced, which it constantly is, if this practice, now generally employed by all judicious farmers, be neglected. The smut, on which we made our experiments, was given us by Mr. Girod-Chantrans. Triturated in an agate mortar, and separated from the hot alcohol, husk, the smut imparted to hot alcohol a yellowish green colour; and, without communicating to it any character of acidity, exhibited only about a hundredth part of its weight of a deep green oily matter, as thick as butter, and acrid as rancid grease. ether, and water. Ether separated from it the same oil. After this action of alcohol, the smut retained both its greasy feel, and filthy smell. Lixiviated with five times its * La Revue Philosoque, &c, Nov. 1805. Abridged from a paper read at the National Institute. weight of boiling water, it gave it a brown red colour, a fetid smell, a soapy quality, and a very decided acidity. This acid, examined by various appropriate reagents, ex- Acid appeared hibited all the properties of the phosphoric. to be the phosphoric. ed. On lixiviating pure smut, not previously treated by alco- This confirmhol, with boiling distilled water, this liquor, which was perceptibly acid, being saturated with potash, gave a precipitate of animal matter, mixed with crystallized ammoniacomagnesian phosphate, and every proof of an alkaline phosphate. These experiments therefore confirm the existence of free phosphoric acid in smut, known by its fixedness, its insolubility in alcohol, its solubility in water, its precipitation by lime, &c. that from pu After the aqueous infusion had been precipitated by pot- Animal matash, it held in solution a fetid animal matter, resembling in ter resembling colour, smell, and the phenomena exhibited by its precipita- trid gluten. tion with various reagents, that found in water in which the gluten of wheat has putrefied. After having undergone the action of alcohol and water The residuum successively, the smut of wheat still retained both its fetid distilled smell and greasy feel, Distilled on an open fire it afforded a third of its weight of water impregnated with acid acetate of ammonia; nearly a third of a deep brown, concrete oil, much resembling adipocere in its form, consistence, and fusibility by a gentle heat; and 0.23 of a coal, which, being incinerated, left 1 gramme [15 grs.], being a hundredth part of the original smut, of white ashes, three fourths of which were phosphate of magnesia, and one fourth phosphate of lime. mined with We examined the smut with its husk, to compare it with Smut exathat which had been deprived of it, but we did not find dif- the husk. ference enough to ascribe to the bran that covers it any de cided influence on its analysis. From our examination, the leading results of which have Its component just been given, we conclude, that the smut of wheat con- parts. tains, 1. A green, butyraceous, fetid, and acrid oil, soluble in Oil. hot alcohol or ether, composing near a third of its weight, and imparting to it its greasy consistence. 2. A vegeto-animal substance, soluble in water, insoluble Vegeto ani L 2 in mal bstance, |