140 Kansas Academy of Science. 



pressing effect on the central nervous system, disturbing the 

 cardiac rhythm; an action on the respiratory centers, causing 

 dypsnea. 



(4) The treated coffee contains in normal proportions all 

 the elements of ordinary roasted coffee, with the exception of 

 caffeotoxine, of which it contains only about one-third as 

 much. 



(5) The process mentioned (vacuum treatment or steam 

 treatment) is said to eliminate the toxic substances, but not 

 the other elements (fat, caffeine, etc.)- 



At the 1914 meeting of the American Pharmaceutical Asso- 

 ciation in Detroit, a paper, read by the author, stated that we 

 had obtained reactions for pyridine in distillates of coffee, but 

 we were unable to make more than an indefinite statement of 

 this, for the reason that, while we had abundant evidence of 

 the presence of pyridine, we had not actually separated it in 

 the pure form. 



During the past year in our laboratory we have paid especial 

 attention as to whether pyridine could be separated in small 

 quantities. In the paper referred to, published in the Journal 

 of the American Pharmaceutical Association for January, 

 1915, it was stated that qualitative determinations of the 

 pyridine-like bodies were possible by colorimetric methods, but 

 during the past year we have endeavored to separate pyridine 

 in pure state from finely pulverized roasted coffee. This we 

 have succeeded in doing, even from small quantities of the 

 pulverized roasted bean. 



The process used consists in heating a quantity of finely 

 pulverized coffee in a balloon flask contained in an oil bath at 

 about 175° to 200° and connected to a suitable condenser and a 

 vacuum pump by which a pressure of about 4 cm. of mercury 

 was obtained. This distillate, when made strongly alkaline, 

 yielded unmistakably pyridine. 



It was thought that, notwithstanding these facts, possibly 

 pyridine might be the result of destructive distillation rather 

 than that this body preexisted in the roasted coffee bean. In 

 order to prove the latter was the case, namely, that pyridine 

 preexisted in roasted coffee and presumably was the result of 

 roasting, the following experiment was performed. A few 

 pounds of coffee were macerated for twenty-four hours with 

 dilute hydrochloric acid and then percolated. The resulting 



