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An Acid that Destroys Sweet Taste— Vomiting of Gall-Stones—New Method of Ventilating—Hœmatometra with Degenerating Fibro-Myoma—Diseases of the Bible—Indian Hemp in Persistent Headache.
A new acid has been extracted, from the leaves of the plant known to botanists as gymnema sylvestra, by Dr. D. Hooper. It is a plant of the family of asclepiadiæ, which grows in India. A few drops of the acid well diluted are found to cause all sense of the sweet taste of sugar to disappear as if by magic. For instance, if gingerbread were eaten, only the taste of the ginger was perceived; if a sweet orange, only the acid flavor of the citric acid. But what is still more curious, not only the sweet taste of substances containing sugar is effaced, but bitterness is also destroyed at the same time. Hence, if a person takes sulphate of quinine after a few