MEASLES TRANSMITTED BY IN- of the recent species and those of newer OCULATION. DR. M. VON KATONA, in a very malignant and wide-spread epidemic of measles, in the year 1841, inoculated 1,122 persons with a drop of fluid from a vesicle, or with a drop of the tears of a patient with measles. It failed in seven per cent. of those on whom it was tried; but in all the rest the disease was produced in a very mild form, and not one of them died. At first, a red areola formed round the puncture, but this soon disappeared. On the 7th day fever set in, with the usual characters of measles; on the 9th or 10th, the eruption appeared; on the 14th, desquamation commenced, with decrease of the fever and the eruption; and by the 17th the patients were almost always perfectly well. geological periods. The Hypothyridæ, on the other hand, have their beaks acute and never truncated; the foramen is below the beak and within the deltidial area; the shells are non-punctated, mostly deeply plicated, generally wider than they are long, and are most of them species met with in the older rocks. The author concluded with some observations on the peculiar characters of certain groups of species. CONDIFFERENT THE BLOOD-CORPUSCLE BY THOS. WHARTON JONES, ESQ., F.R.S. THIS paper is divided into three parts; the first relating to the blood-corpuscles of the vertebrata; the second to those of the invertebrata; and the last to a comparison between the two. He first describes the microscopic appearances of these corpuscles in different classes of vertebrate animals, beginning with the skate and the frog, and proceeding to birds and mammifera: first in their early embryonic state, and next in the subsequent periods of their growth. He finds in oviparous vertebrata generally, four principal forms of corpuscles. These he distinguishes as the phases, first of the granule blood-cell, which he describes as a cell filled with granules, disclosing by the solvent action of dilute acetic acid on these granules a vesicular, or as the author terms it, a "cellæform" nucleus. These granule cells appear under two stages of development, namely, the coarsely granulous stage and the finely granulous stage. The second After describing the subdivisions of this genus established by Lamarck, De Blainville, Von Buch, and Prof. Phillips, and alluding to the researches of Dr. Carpenter on the structure of shells, the author, agreeing with the latter as to the importance of the punctation of the surface in the shells in question, states, that on separating the two general forms which exist among the Terebratulæ, that of plicated and smooth species, it will be found that the majority of the smooth species have a truncated beak and a punctated shell, and, on the other hand, a large number of the plicated species have an acute beak and a non-phase is that of the nucleolated blood-cell, punctated structure. "Following out this simple observation, in connexion with the other characters before mentioued, we arrive at constant and definite characters for two subdivisions of this genus, entireiy dependant on the following general proposition, viz.: that certain positions of the foramen, with regard to the beak, its form and character, and its relation to the deltidial area, always accompany the presence or absence of a punctated structure." To these two divisions the author applies the terms Epithyride and Hypothyridæ, as suggested by Professor Phillips; and states that, in the Epithyride the beak is always more or less obliquely truncate, and the foramen is in the substance of the dorsal valve, while the shells, whether plicated or smooth, have a punctated structure, and are generally longer than wide. This group includes most oval in shape, containing a vesicular (or "cellæform ") nucleus, and red-coloured matter. These cells likewise appear under two stages of development; colourless in the first and coloured in the second, in which last stage it constitutes the red corpuscle. In the early mammiferous embryo, he finds, in addition to the former, a third phase, that of free vesicular nucleus, exhibiting, like the nucleolated cell, the colourless and the coloured stages. On examining the corpuscles of the lymph of vertebrate animals, the author finds them in all the classes to be identical in structure with their blood-corpuscles, and differing only in the inferior degree of colouration, attending their last stage. In the oviparous classes, he observes that the nucleolated are more numerous than the granule cells, while in the mammifera the latter are pre dominant, which is the reverse of the proportion in which they exist in the blood of these animals. He finds that some of the nucleolated cells of the contents of the thoracic duct exhibit a marked degree of colouration, and have an oval shape; thus offering a resemblance with the blood of the early embryonic state. The blood-corpuscles of all the invertebrate animals in which the author examined them, present the same phases of granule and nucleolated cells as in the higher classes, excepting that in the last stage of the latter phase the colouration is very slight, but the vesicular nucleus is frequently distinctly coloured. As in the higher classes, corpuscles exist in different states of transition from the granular to the nucleolated form of cell. In some of the invertebrata, corpuscles are found which appear to be the nuclei of some of the nucleolated cells become free; and these the author considers to be abortions, rather than examples, of cells having attained their third phase of free cells. Corpuscles are also met with in these animals, in greater or less abundance, belonging to the lowest forms of organic elements, namely, elementary granules. The comparison which the author institutes between the blood-corpuscles of the vertebrate and invertebrate divisions of the animal kingdom, tends to show that they in all cases pass through similar phases of development, except with respect to the last, or coloured stage of the nucleolated cell, which they do not attain in the lower classes of animals. He finds that the blood-corpuscles of the crab, according to an analysis made by Professor Graham, contain a sensible quantity of iron, perhaps as much as red corpuscles. He considers the corpuscles of the blood of the invertebrata, in as far as relates to the absence of nucleolated cells, as resembling those of the lymph of vertebrate animals. ON NITRANILINE-A NEW PRO DUCT OF DECOMPOSITION OF DINITROBENZOLE.* BY DRS. MUSPRATT AND HOFMANN. THE following paper was read before the Chemical Society of London, Mar. 6, 1846 : aniline, which gave merely nitrate of aniline when the acid was employed cold-or products of decomposition, as carbazotic acid, when heat was applied. Other means, thought likely to yield the body in question, were also unsuccessful. It was at length obtained by the action of sulphuret of ammonium on dinitrobenzole, a product of the long-continued action of nitric acid of great strength upon nitrobenzide. The dinitrobenzole is dissolved in alcohol, saturated with ammoniacal gas, and treated with sulphuretted hydrogen until the conversion is complete, and sulphur ceases to be deposited. Hydrochloric acid is then added in excess, and the solution filtered and mixed with potash, which throws down the new substance as are sinous mass of a brown colour. It is purified by crystallisation from boiling water or alcohol. Nitraniline contains C12 (H6 NO4) N. Its properties are as follows:-It crystallises from hot water in long yellow needles, is sparingly soluble in the cold, but is dissolved without difficulty by alcohol and ether. The dilute acids also dissolve it, the solutions being precipitated by potash, in yellow flakes. It is inodorous in the cold, but when heated exhales an aromatic smell. Nitraniline is fusible at 230° F., and distils without decomposition at a temperature above 540° F. When heated in the air, it takes fire and burns with a smoky flame. In very many other respects, the properties of the new substance resemble those of aniline. The basic powers of nitraniline are exceedingly feeble, and it is utterly destitute of alkaline reaction to the most delicate testpaper. The hydrochlorate, the same salt in combination with bichloride of platinum, the acid oxalate, and some products of decomposition of the base were also described in the paper. TO CORRESPONDENTS. V. of The Chemist through any bookseller, "I. D." (Leamington) can procure Vol. or it will be sent direct by our publisher on receipt of a post-office order for 12s. 6d. We feel obliged by the communication forwarded, and shall be happy to insert practical papers at all times. The attempt by the authors to prepare a substitution-compound of aniline, in which the elements of nitrous acid should replace a NOTICE.-All Communications and Books part of the hydrogen of that body, was, after for Review must be addressed" To the Pubrepeated failures, accomplished; not, how-lisher of THE CHEMIST, 310, Strand, Lonever, by the direct action of nitric acid on don." Communications must be prepaid, and sent before the 15th of each month. Books for Review before the 10th. * Chemical Gazette. THE CHEMIST. 1. CHEMISTRY. AN ESSAY ON COFFEE. BY M. PAYEN. compound most worthy of notice, on account of its proportion, its properties, and the difficulty of extracting it, remained to be discovered in coffee. Its presence was revealed to me by the frequent miscalculations its easy changes introduced into my analyses: the principal change was manifested by the rich green colour, whose condition and cause I studied, and which, from that time, after having long embarrassed me, became a cer Payssé, Chenevix, Cadet de Vaux and Cadet de Gaisicourt, have examined the composition of coffee without separating any of the ultimate principles; Runge discovered and Robiquet studied cafein, a crystallisable nitrogenated substance, which sublimes by heat in the form of white and glittering needles. Cafein is identical with thein, dis-tain guide for the extraction of the substance covered afterwards in the leaves of the tea plant. According to the analyses of Messrs. Whöler and Liebig, it contains 0.288 of nitrogen, Robiquet pointed out two fatty substances in coffee, one of which appeared to him to be analogous to the resins, and possessed of a sharp taste; and a sugary substance with a balsamic odour. M. Rocheleder, a skilful German chemist, examined, in 1844, the fatty substances of coffee, from which he separated, by saponification, palmatic and oleic acid; he demonstrated the fact, that coffee contained no resin, and he indicated the presence of legumine, a nitrogenated substance. The resist ing tissue appeared to him to be entirely composed of the ligneous substances I have described. Notwithstanding the efforts of the philosophers, whose names I have cited, the chemical knowledge of this important production was not complete; they were not even sufficient to answer questions of economy as to the elementary composition of the infusion of coffee and its nutritive properties, either separately or associated, in the usual manner, with sugar and milk. In fact, the authority of the scientific name of M. Liebig might have induced a belief that this infusion was possessed of no nutritive property, for he said it can only contain a substance possessing a minimum quantity of nitrogen, namely, cafein, which, in its composition, resembles alloxan and taurin. If I do not deceive myself, the soluble * Comptes Rendus. N.S., VOL. IV.—No. XLIII., July, 1846. by which it was occasioned. We may easily comprehend this when we see the crystalline substance in the perisperm of coffee, which, in its natural state, is white, give a deep green colour to 5,000 times its own weight of a watery or alcoholic liquid. A simple experiment will enable us to judge: I mix a few drops of ammonia with a weak and almost colourless solution of coffee in its normal state. The solution instantly becomes of a yellow colour, which gradually passes to a deep green, bordering on blue; first at the surface exposed to the air, and spreading by degrees to the bottom of the vessel. This remarkable property may, perhaps, find an economical application in the colouring of liqueurs and confectionary, by doing away with the danger of certain colouring matters. I shall point out in the second part of this essay several other phenomena of colour under the influence of various agents, as well as the principal analytical results relating to this new compound, and the process for the direct extraction of cafein, at least as pure as it was ever obtained, and containing 30 per cent. of nitrogen. A previous rapid examination, under the microscope, assisted by the method pointed out in the preceding memoirs on vegetable development, give the following results :— The resisting mass, of a horny appearance, that forms the perisperm or endosperm of the seeds, when deprived of their pericarp, exhibits a tissue of juxtaposed cells with thick sides, excavated with irregular cavities communicating with each other. This explains the possible exhaustion of coffee when 20 simply bruised, and the loss that may take place by the accidental immersion of the seeds. The thick sides, when broken to pieces, and in the presence of iodine, acquire that indigo blue colour that shows the presence of cellulose, and then change into a gummy solution, indicating the presence of dextrine. The agglomerated organic corpuscules, coloured orange by these reagents and permanent bodies, indicate, in addition to their nitrogenated composition-1. A perispheric cuticle, covering, in all their folds, the surfaces of the perisperm. 2. Spongy membranes, filling all the epidermic cells, and containing oleiform and coloured substances. 3. In the internal cells, analogous granulous bodies, containing fatty substances. 4. Lamelliform membranes, in the intercellular meati. Before the thick sides are broken away from the cells of the perisperm, a peculiar yellow cloudiness shows the presence of a nitrogenated substance injecting the cellulose. To discover whether there really was any other nitrogenated substance besides cafein in the decoction of coffee, I endeavoured to determine the proportions and the elementary composition of the substances extracted by cold or boiling water from coffee in its normal state, or after it had been more or less roasted. The dry remainder, and the liquids arising from the washing of normal Martinique coffee, reduced to powder by means of a file, in cold or boiling water, yielded, for 100 parts of substances dissolved, 400; hydroscopic water 11·5; insoluble matters 48.5. The undissolved matter containing only 0.045 of a colourless fat oil and organic nitrogenated bodies, in addition to traces of casein, legumin and mineral compounds; we thus see that the chief portion of the substances contained in the tissue had passed into the solution. For the purpose of ascertaining whether the liquid obtained by passing boiling water through coffee properly roasted would be the same, I tried the effect of roasting, on the volume and weight of the coffee, and afterwards ascertained the elementary composition of the products taken up by the water, comparatively, with that of the extract of the decoction. Coffee, roasted so as to assume a light red tint, preserved the maximum of its aroma and weight, but gave out less colouring matter: 100 parts, by weight, roasted to the same extent, lost 15, and were reduced to 85: 100 parts in volume, acquired in the same operation a volume equal to 130. The roasting being continued until it produced & chesnut colour, nearly resembling the usual colour of roasted coffee, and corresponded with a loss of 20 per cent. The increase in volume is, in this case, in the proportion of 100 to 153. This considerable increase is easily understood from the property possessed by the nitrogenated substances interposed within the tissue, of swelling, when heated. If we still further increase the heat so as to produce a brown colour with a kind of varnish ou the surface of the seeds, the loss of weight rises to 25 per cent. The influence of this loss on the proportion of the nitrogenated matter is indicated by the following results : Thus a single filtration extracts from the red coffee half as much again as that yielded by the brown coffee, and more than a fourth more than the solution from the chesnutcoloured coffee. The relative difference in the proportion of essential oil or aroma are in the same direction, and the roasting it until it was of brown colour, by injuring, too much, the nitrogenated organic substances, develops empyreumatic oils of a disagreeable odour. The watery infusion and its usual additions remain to be considered, with respect to their nutritive qualities. The following are the results of these analyses: We shall see that the extracts contain, on the average, the fourth of their weight of nitrogenated substances, the surplus being composed of salts useful in alimentation, substances analogous to sugars, and fatty matters, of a bitter principle and an aromatic essence; it is evident that such a combination must be possessed of nutritive properties. The proportions of the various elements in solution being greater in the infusion of the coffee that was least roasted, we see that in this respect, as with regard to the more important aromatic quality, we ought to give the preference to a slight degree of roasting. COMPARATIVE NUTRITIVE PROPERTIES. If an extract of coffee, in water, prepared with 100 grammes to the litre, contains 20 grammes of alimentary substances, it would represent three times more solid matter than 1 litre of liquid obtained by infusing 20 grammes of tea (according to M. Peligot's experiments on the latter substance) and more than double the quantity of nitrogenated matter. We can understand, therefore, how the extract of coffee, in water, called café noir, in such general use in Italy and Egypt |