ON TINCTURE OF OPIUM.

The Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Society of Antwerp has employed a commission composed of its members to determine the best menstruum for the preparation of tincture of opium. It has arrived at the following results:—

1. Good opium gives, when treated with water, less extract than bad or adulterated.

2. By warm digestion, a stronger solution is obtained than by cold infusion.

3. Alcohol must be preferred to wine in the preparation of tincture of opium.

4. Narcotine, although alone insoluble in water, becomes partially extracted with the other ingredients of opium. When it is advisable to avoid the removal of narcotine, proceed {280} as follows:—Treat carefully prepared aqueous extract of opium with, boiling alcohol; this dissolves out the narcotine and morphine, from which solution, when cold, the narcotine separates.

After the precipitation, whatever ingredients are necessary to form the tincture are to be added to the alcoholic solution.

By this opportunity, the commission recommend another process by which morphine may be more readily separated from narcotine. One part of the opium is to be treated with four parts of alcohol. After the alcohol has been separated by filtration, the residue is again to be macerated with three parts of alcohol. The resulting tinctures, after being mixed, are to be set aside for twenty-four hours to allow the narcotine to separate; afterwards the morphine is to be precipitated with ammonia. To remove the last traces of morphine, the fluid, from which the precipitated morphine has been filtered, is to be kept in a warm place for two days, a little water having been previously added, when a fresh quantity of morphine will fall down. By this method, 1⁄12 of the weight of the opium employed, can be obtained as morphine.—Annals of Pharmacy and Practical Chemistry.

PREPARATION OF PROPYLAMINE FROM ERGOTINE. BY DR. F. L. WINCKLER.

The readers of the New Repertory for Pharmacy, part i., p. 22 already know that I have been for some time occupied with the investigation of ergot, and that I obtained, by the distillation of ergotine with potash, besides ammonia, a substance having a very unpleasant odor, which conducted itself as a volatile alkali, and possessed a narcotic and highly diuretic property. This confirmation of a result which I had obtained some years before, induced me to continue my experiments, and I have now arrived at the conviction that the volatile alkali {281} which is extracted from ergotine by distillation with potash is propylamine (N H2 C6 H7, or N H3 C6 H6) consequently the same which, according to the most recent experiments, is proved to be the product of decomposition of narcotine by potash, and the ingredient of herring-pickle. The smell itself made me imagine, long before I was acquainted with Wertheim’s experiments, that herring-pickle must likewise contain propylamine, and my experiments have fully confirmed this supposition, for in distilling herring-pickle with potash I obtained the same propylamine as that extracted from a concentrated aqueous solution of ergotine. The properties in which they agree are the following:—

1. Propylamine saturates acids completely, and thus forms salts soluble in water, and for the most part in spirit of wine, with the exception of sulphate of propylamine, which does not dissolve in the latter. Beautiful white crystals may, however, be produced from the concentrated aqueous solution by the admixture of alcohol of eighty per cent. of strength. The salts of propylamine dissolved in water and treated with tannic acid produce a white (flocculent) precipitate; with chloride of mercury likewise, a white but pulverulent precipitate; with nitrate of silver a white (flocculent) precipitate; and with chloride of platinum a yellow precipitate (a crystalline powder). The salts of propylamine have a strong odor of fresh ergot, much less of herring-pickle, and are easily decomposed by potash.

2. The concentrated aqueous solution being mixed with a fourth of its volume of tincture of iodine, a considerable dark yellowish-brown sediment is precipitated, and the supernatant fluid appears dark brownish-red. But in a very short time this sediment diminishes considerably, the fluid gradually changes color, so that in about twelve hours’ time there will be left but very little orange-colored sediment, whilst the fluid itself will appear almost colorless. Immediately after the addition of iodine the very disagreeable odor of propylamine disappears, and the mixture acquires the odor of iodine.

3. When the neutral aqueous solution of sulphate of {282} propylamine is evaporated in a water-bath it exhales a very disagreeable odor of herring, the solution becomes very acid, has only a weak odor of ergot, and all the re-actions cease. If this concentrated solution be digested with caustic lime in a still, there comes over, without the aid of artificial heat, almost pure propylamine, which has the odor of an ammoniacal liquid, and produces all the re-actions of pure propylamine.

Now the propylamine of ergot presents the very same results, and it is on this account that until lately, it has always been mistaken for ammonia. I am convinced that it constitutes the odorous principle of urine, perspiration, and in the blood, and is often the cause of the odor which we observe in the action of alkaline leys upon nitrogenous compounds. Propylamine belongs to the organic bases, and may be considered as the adjunct [Paarling] of ammonia. I think I am justified in concluding, from the results of my experiments, that propylamine, combined with an acid, pre-exists in ergot as well as in herring-pickle, and is not produced by the potash, as is the case with narcotine. I have previously demonstrated the presence of formic acid in ergot, and it is with that acid that the propylamine seems to be united. I have not yet made any experiments with herring-pickle.

It will now be difficult to determine whether the medicinal activity of ergot depends on propylamine or not, for the neutral salts of propylamine dissolved in water are easily absorbed, and I hope to be able to induce physicians to make pharmacological and therapeutical experiments.

I have reasons to suppose that propylamine is likewise an ingredient of cod-liver oil, and being easily combined with iodine, it may soon be ascertained by practical application whether it ought not to be considered as the bearer (träger) of iodine. I propose to begin the necessary experiments in this respect as soon as my apparatus is entirely free from the odor of propylamine, in order to avoid all error.

Finally, I had the idea of trying an experiment with regard to propylamine upon my own urine, which I made after a {283} supper consisting of roast veal, potato-salad, and a glass of water, and which was neither acid nor alkaline. I poured three ounces of the urine, fresh made and still quite warm, upon four ounces of burned lime, and submitted it to distillation. The distilled product had indeed the odor of pure propylamine, and re-acted strongly alkaline; but acted in a remarkable manner on tincture of iodine in the same way as liquid ammonia. After having neutralized it with sulphuric acid, the liquid showed when tested with tannic acid and nitrate of silver, an unmistakable proportion of propylamine. Might this be formed out of the urea? My experiment confirms, at all events, the opinion stated above; the beginning is made, and I may now pass from experiment to scientific deductions.

Remarks by Dr. Buchner:—My friend, Dr. Winckler, in communicating the above paper, very agreeably surprised me by transmitting at the same time specimens of his preparation of propylamine, and that too in quantities varying from one to two drachms, for which I hereby beg to express to him publicly my best thanks. I received from him, namely:—

Hitherto I have only experimented with the preparations No. 2, 4 and 5, in order to verify and complete the statements of the above paper. All these solutions are quite colorless and clear, like water; they diffuse already at some distance a strong odor of herring; but the pure aqueous propylamine, when smelt at closely, has a pungent odor, very similar to that of liquid ammonia, which, however, at a distance, assumes, as it has been said, the smell of herring. This odor is so peculiarly char­ac­ter­is­tic, that I do not doubt, that even in water-closets, in consequence of fermentation, propylamine is developed, particularly as woollen clothes easily acquire there the odor of {284} herring. All the conditions at least necessary for the formation of propylamine ammonia, and carbo-hydrogen, are to be found in water-closets. In a small close room its odor becomes insupportable, and affects strongly the head. Dr. Winckler, had therefore, good reasons to warn me against it. A young chemist, upon whose hand I dropped a very minute quantity of aqueous propylamine, for the purpose of ascertaining its taste, not­with­stand­ing that he had been walking after that a considerable distance, and had been exposed to the air, smelt still, after some hours, so strongly of herring, that happening to to enter a company, he was spoken to about it by several persons. I mention this merely as a caution. The taste of pure aqueous propylamine is pungently alkaline, and hardly distinguishable from that of caustic ammonia.

The chemical re-actions of propylamine are well explained by Winckler. Turmeric paper turns brown with it, but being exposed to the air, in which propylamine quickly evaporates, it resumes again its primitive yellow color.

Sulphate of propylamine (No. 3,) appears in small splendid white prisms, exposed to the air it evolves a distinct smell of herring, and has a pungent saline taste, like sulphate of ammonia; it is entirely neutral, and when moistened with water, it does not alter the color either of blue or red litmus-paper, or of turmeric-paper.

We have in solutions of silver and iodine, which are not precipitated by ammonia, very appropriate re-agents for distinguishing propylamine from ammonia. Propylamine, however, treated with sulphate of silver, gave me not a white, but a yellowish-brown precipitate; and this result suggested to me the idea, that formiate of propylamine might be present. This precipitate was easily and perfectly dissolved in caustic liquid ammonia. With an aqueous solution of iodine I acquired at one time, according to the quantitative proportion a brown, and at another time a beautiful yellow precipitate, which dissolved in an excess of iodide of potassium. I usually employ an aqueous solution of iodine in iodide of potassium {285} instead of the tincture of iodine made with spirit of wine. The precipitate produced by iodide of potassium is, as I have just stated, either brown or yellow, provided that no excess of iodide of potassium be employed.—Buchner’s Neues Repertorium, Bd. 1.