ee ee eee ne ee ee eee eee ee ee ae Se ee ee 
oo ene es a. ee eee ee ee ee eS! ee — -— > = Pie i pil oe 
1022 
The seeds are remarkable in appearance because of their size and of 
their beautifully polished, brown exterior. They are lenticular, flattened, 
and 3 to 4 centimeters in diameter. The kernel, which is often quite 
elastic, is mashed and used by the natives for poultices, which are believed 
to be useful for children in relieving colicky pains in the stomach; it is 
never employed for adults. The seeds contain a fatty oil, which is 
extracted and used in the Sunda Islands for illuminating purposes and 
in some places the natives also eat them, after washing out the active 
principle and then roasting the seeds. Rosenthaler,*? who studied the 
subject, found saponin in these fruits. Gogo fiber is one of the plant 
products used in the Philippines to assist in catching fish in ponds and 
streams, as the soluble products so stupefy the animals as to render their 
capture easy. 
The active principle of gogo belongs to the very interesting group of 
glucosides known as saponins, but these substances present a complicated 
field for chemical work, because of the difficulties encountered in purify- 
ing them. They generally are colloids which most tenaciously adsorb 
the different compounds with which they come in contact. The results 
of my efforts to isolate the saponin from Hntada scandens are given 
below. 
Petroleum ether takes a fatty substance from the macerated trunk fiber, which 
contains a trace of an alkaloid but no saponin; but the latter can be extracted 
either with water, methyl, or ethyl alcohol. The methods briefly are as follows: 
Magnesia method.—Saponin is extracted with water, filtered, evaporated to a 
small volume, and dialyzed through a collodion tube. Magnesium oxide is now 
added and the whole evaporated to dryness on a steam bath. The residue is 
finely powdered and extracted with hot, absolute alcohol in a Soxhlet apparatus. 
This alcoholic solution is evaporated to dryness, the residue again taken up with 
aleohol, and from this fluid the saponin is precipitated fractionally by ether. 
In order to purify the product it is usually necessary to repeat the entire process. 
The saponin obtained by this means is beautifully white, but the yield is very 
poor. 
Lead acetate method.—Saponin is extracted with water, filtered, precipitated by 
basic lead acetate, and the precipitate collected and washed. It is then suspended 
in dilute aleohol and decomposed by means of sodium sulphate. The precipitate 
is now repeatedly extracted with 80 per cent alcohol, concentrated to a small 
volume and dialyzed. After dialysis it is evaporated to dryness, dissolved in 
alcohol, and fractionally precipitated by ether. This method gives a product 
which has a good appearance, but one the ash content of which is very high. The 
use of hydrogen sulphide to decompose the lead precipitate is objectionable, 
because of the foul-odored substances which are then taken up in the alcoholic 
solution and which later can not be completely removed. 
Methyl alcohol method.—The gogo is extracted hot, using a reflux condenser, 
first with petroleum ether and then with methyl alcohol, in which the saponin is 
quite soluble. The solution is now evaporated to dryness and the residue dissolved 
in water, certain gums and resins remaining behind. The aqueous solution is now 
filtered, the filtrate dialyzed, evaporated to dryness, powdered, and again dissolved 
2 Arch, de Pharm. (1903), 241, 641. 
