As Preyer puts it, the activity of the cerebrum is a sort of respiration, while its repose is a sort of asphyxia of this organ. It is certain that every psychical act, every thought, involves a certain consumption of oxygen by the nervous substance. During waking, this gas is furnished to the brain in the blood. If the blood supply fails, those forms of activity which we denominate consciousness, attention, volition, and thought cease. This is easily proved by compression of the carotids. It is known that in the waking hours the muscles, as well as the nerves and the nerve-centers, as a consequence of that activity, produce substances easily oxidizable, among which is lactic acid. Some have even attributed the sense of fatigue which we experience after prolonged exertion to the presence of this acid in the blood.[15] According to Preyer, after the work of the day is done, and the quiet of sleep is sought, the waste materials of which we have spoken, and which he proposes to call ponogènes (substances which cause fatigue), being accumulated in the tissues, little by little undergo decomposition, by taking oxygen from the blood. They thus divert a considerable quantity of this gas from the cerebrum, the cells of which, deprived of this element so indispensable to their activity, enter into a state of relative repose. These waste matters are, then, the physical cause of sleep, which will be the more profound and prolonged the more the blood is charged with the excrementitious products of function. Preyer has experimented on animals by injecting varying quantities of lactic acid into their blood, and has produced a deep somnolent condition which could not be distinguished from natural sleep. The use of lactate of sodium in the human subject has sometimes been attended with a like hypnotic effect. Further researches are needed before the question can be considered as settled.—N. Y. Med. Jour.
PREPARATION OF CHLORHYDRINES.
The usual methods of preparing chlorhydrines are in part inconvenient, in part unsatisfactory in yield. A. Ladenburg therefore proposes the following process, using ethylen-chlorhydrine as an example:
Glycol is heated in a distillery apparatus to 148° C., and a slow current of dry hydrochloric acid passed through it. The water formed and the glycol-chlorhydrine distill over and are collected in tubulated receivers. The temperature of the bath is gradually raised to 160° C., when all the glycol is completely decomposed, except a trifling residue. The distillate is mixed with two or three volumes of ether, and then freed from any hydrochloric acid present with potassium carbonate. The ethereal solution is drawn off, and completely dried over freshly fused potassium carbonate.—Berl. Ber.
A NEW METHOD FOR THE DETECTION OF SUGAR IN THE URINE.
At a recent meeting of the Clinical Society of London, Dr. Oliver gave a demonstration of the method he employs for the detection of sugar in the urine by means of test-papers. The test-papers were charged with the carmine of indigo and carbonate of soda. When one was dropped into an ordinary half inch test tube, and as much water poured in as just covered the upper end, and heat applied, a transparent and true blue solution, resembling Fehling's in appearance, was obtained. (A transparent solution could not, at the meeting, be produced from the London water. The characteristic reaction with grape sugar was, however, unimpaired).
If with the paper one drop of diabetic urine had been added, shortly after the first simmer, a beautiful series of color changes appeared; first violet, then purple, then red, and finally straw color; while, on the other hand, one drop of non-diabetic urine induced no alteration of color. The colors returned in the inverse order on shaking the tube, which allowed the air to mingle with the liquid. Reheating restored the colors again.
Confirmation of the presence of glucose was obtained by dropping in a mercuric chloride paper, while the solution was still quite hot, after the complete development of the indigo reaction. Then there was produced immediately a blackish green precipitate. No such precipitation occurred when a drop of non-saccharine urine was under examination by the indigo test; then the blue solution was merely turned into a transparent green one.