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1033 
The hard, smooth-coated seeds are exceedingly common in the Islands, 
the native boys using them in a game similar to marbles. They are 
purchasable at all the shops and are quite cheap, the price being 10 
cents, United States currency, per pound, and all classes of natives 
consider them to be a good medicine for ‘‘stomach troubles.” An adult 
will eat from ten to twelve nuts, and if there is no relief in an hour or 
two the dose is repeated, and the dosage for youths and infants is in 
proportion. Nausea and symptoms of poisoning are said to be produced 
when too many are taken. The kernels are also supposed to be very 
efficacious as an antiperiodic and tonic; in India a powder prepared from 
them and black pepper, ground together, has a considerable repute for 
the same purposes and as a febrifuge. The active principle of the nuts 
is supposed to be a substance termed bonducin, which was isolated by 
Heckel and Schlagdenhauffen,** who assigned to this body the formula 
C,,H,,0;. I found that ten kernels weighed 9.8 grams; ten nuts 21 
grams. 
Several kilos of the nuts were obtained and examined. The taste of the kernel 
is exceedingly bitter. Dilute acids or acid-alcohol do not extract either alkaloid 
or glucoside, but there is about 20 per cent of a light-yellow, fixed oil in the seeds, 
which can be obtained in the usual manner by pressing or extracting. 
One kilo of the finely ground kernels was extracted hot with alcohol with the 
aid of a reflux condenser. The alcohol was distilled and the oily residue dissolved 
in a small amount of chloroform. This solution was now washed successively 
with dilute alkalies, acids, and water, filtered, and then poured into 5 volumes of 
petroleum ether. The bonducin then separated as a white powder. This was 
filtered and purified by successive treatments with chloroform and petroleum 
ether. 
Obtained in this way bonducin is a white, amorphous powder with 
a nut-like odor and a resinous feel and aspect. It has an exceedingly 
bitter taste which it lends to water, in which it is only very slightly 
soluble. It dissolves to a greater extent in dilute hydrochloric acid, but 
after the solution is boiled no reduction of Fehling’s solution takes place, 
so that bonducin is not a glucoside. 
It is readily soluble in chloroform and glacial acetic acid and in ether with but 
a slight residue; it is taken up by petroleum ether with very great difficulty. 
Strong alkalies slowly dissolve bonducin, as they do most resins. The substance 
gives a blue color with concentrated hydrochloric acid, which becomes purple on 
standing; the same reagent with a little ferric chloride gives a strong greenish- 
yellow; a salmon color is obtained with concentrated nitric acid, and concentrated 
sulphurie acid produces a brown, which soon goes to a deep purple. Bonducin 
from which all ether-insoluble matter has been carefully removed, gives an intense 
rose-red color with concentrated hydrochloric acid, instead of a blue as with the 
ordinary preparation. 
Another method of obtaining bonducin is by extracting the ground nuts with 
ether; when the solvent has been evaporated, the resin separates from the oil as a 
white powder; this separation can be rendered more complete by adding petroleum 
ether. 
** Compt. rend. Acad. d. sc., Par. (1886), 103, 89. 
= 
bc 
+ ted 
