| Atropine 
Piperidine. Coniine. hydro- Atropine. 
| chloride. 
an _| 
¥ pf, 1000 Vo fy = 1000 Vv ply ¥: My 1000 
8 21.5 10.6 16 26.4 18. 32 125.2 87 22.3 8.4 
16 30.2 149 | 32 36.4 18. 
32 41.3 20.3 | 64 49.6 25. 
64 55.3 27.2 | 128 65.4 33. 
128 72.7 35.8 | 256 83.0 42. 
256 93.2 45.9 
128 132.5 | 174 33.8 12.8 
320 142.6 | CO 263.0 | 
Oo oe ST ON 
Echitamine, when rapidly heated, melts and at the same time decomposes at 
200°-208°, depending upon the rapidity of the heating. Echitamine hydrochlo- 
ride crystallizes in the form of brilliant needles, moderately soluble in cold water, 
more readily so in hot. Platinic chloride gives no precipitate in a 1 per cent 
solution of this salt; neither do concentrated hydrochloric acid or soluble chlorides 
precipitate it in this dilution. The addition of a little concentrated hydrochloric 
acid to a 20 per cent solution causes an instant precipitation of practically all 
of the salt of the alkaloid as a white, crystalline powder, while a little of the 
same acid added to a 5 per cent solution separates the alkaloidal salt more slowly 
in the form of beautiful bunches of crystalline needles. The products obtained by 
heating echitamine hydrochloride with hydrochloric acid reduce Fehling’s solution, 
but the alkaloid itself will not do so. On the other hand neither ditamine, nor 
any substances which may be produced from it by boiling with hydrochloric acid, 
affect this reagent. 
Echitamine hydrochloride gives a transitory pink color with sodium 
perchlorate and hydrochloric acid. The latter acid alone gradually turns 
all solutions of the alkaloid to a deep, purple color, especially on boiling. 
This purple solution reduces Fehling’s solution, but the reducing sub- 
stances can be completely precipitated from it by the addition of the 
usual alkaloidal reagents. [lence a sugar is not present among the 
substances separated and therefore echitamine is not a glucoside, as 
Harnack has claimed it to be. 
One gram of echitamine hydrochloride was heated for two hours in a water 
bath with 20 cubic centimeters of concentrated hydrochloric acid. The intensely 
purple solution was now diluted with water and made alkaline with sodium 
hydrate. A flocculent, white precipitate separated, which was filtered and washed. 
No oil, such as Harnack describes, and which he suspected to be dimethyl aniline, 
was observed on addition of the alkali. The precipitate contains a new alkaloidal 
substance which has not yet been investigated because of lack of material. 
Alkaline hydroxides precipitate the white, flocculent, free base from 
concentrated solutions of the alkaloidal hydrochloride but, owing to the 
solubility of the former in water, no such separation takes place from 
dilute ones. Hesse has prepared several salts of ‘“echitammonium hy- 
drate,” and those which I have examined confirm his descriptions in all 
respects. 
