Chemical examination of kô-sam seeds (Brucea sumatrana, Roxb.) / by Frederick B. Power and Frederic H. Lees.

  • Power, Frederick B. (Frederick Belding), 1853-1927.
Date:
[1903]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Chemical examination of kô-sam seeds (Brucea sumatrana, Roxb.) / by Frederick B. Power and Frederic H. Lees. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    latter two extracts were mixed, and, suspecting the presence of some substance of the quercetin type, the whole was dissolved in warm alcohol, to which a concentrated solution of 20 Gm. of potassium acetate in hot alcohol was subsequently added. (Compare Journ. Chevi. Soc., 1899, 75, p. 433.) As this afforded nothing crystalline the alcohol was removed, the residue taken up with water, and the aqueous solution, after being saturated with ammonium sulphate, shaken out many times with ether. The ethereal liquid, which had a bright yellow colour, was washed once with water, dried with calcium chloride, and the ether removed. The residue gave a bright green colour with ferric chloride and a deep yellow colour with alkalis, but afforded nothing crystalline; on the addition of water only a tarry substance was obtained. (B) Filtrate from Basic Lead Acetate Precipitate.—After the removal of the lead by hydrogen sulphide, and filtering, a yellow liquid was obtained, which, when concentrated, formed a reddish-yellow syrup. It was allowed to stand for two weeks, but nothing crystalline separated. It gave no precipitate with tannic acid, as the original aqueous liquid did before the extraction of the bitter principle with chloroform, and it was only very slightly coloured by ferric chloride. It still possessed, however, an intensely bitter taste, and abundantly reduced Fehling’s solution. It was therefore mixed with prepared saw- dust, thoroughly dried, and, as in the case of the lead acetate precipitate, extracted successively in a Soxhlet apparatus with ether, chloroform, ethyl acetate, and absolute alcohol. Both the ether and chloroform extracts afforded only very slight residues. The ethyl acetate and alcohol extracts were dark in colour, and afforded only syrupy residues, which contained an abundance of a reducing sugar, whose osazone melted at 204-205°. Although it was to be presumed that if any quassin were contained in the seeds it would have been completely removed by the method employed in the isolation of bitter principle (a), yet as Heckel and Schlagdenhauffen have indicated in their paper (loc. cit.) that they separated what they assumed to be quassin by extracting the alcoholic extract of the seeds with amyl alcohol, it was thought desirable to subject the above- mentioned, very bitter, ethyl acetate and alcoholic extracts to a similar treatment. The residues from these two extracts were therefore mixed, dissolved in water, and the liquid shaken out many times with hot amyl alcohol. This afforded a dark coloured liquid, which was washed with water, and the amyl