186 



2. On the Products of the Destructive Distillation of Animal 

 Substances, Part I. By Dr Thomas Anderson. 



In this communication the author details the general properties 

 of bone-oil, the substance employed in his experiments, and those 

 of certain of the volatile bases contained in it. 



The oil was first rectified, and the product collected in two 

 separate portions, each of which was separately agitated with dilute 

 sulphuric acid for the separation of the bases. The acid solution so 

 obtained was then boiled down to a small bulk for the purpose of 

 separating any non-basic oil which might have been dissolved, and 

 distilled with potash, soda, or slaked lime. The bases passed over 

 in solution in water, from which they were separated by means of 

 solid caustic potass ; similar processes were performed with both 

 portions of the bone-oil, but in the present paper the author con- 

 fines himself to the pure volatile portion only. 



The oil separated by this process from the more volatile portion 

 was found to be a mixture of at least four or five different bases, 

 which were separated from each other by fractionated distillation. 



The most volatile of these, which boils at about 175° Fahr., was 

 present in extremely mmute quantity only. For it the author pro- 

 poses the name of petinine (from ■tsts/i'os, volatile.) It is a transpa- 

 rent colourless fluid, highly soluble in water, alcohol, and ether. The 

 smell is pungent, and resembles that of ammonia, but is accompanied 

 by the odour of decaying apples. It gives, with chloride of gold, a 

 pale-yellow precipitate, and with bichloride of platinum and corrosive 

 sublimate, beautiful crystallisable salts, the former resembhng iodide 

 of lead, the latter in pearly plates. The analysis of petinine gave re- 

 sults corresponding with the formula Cg B.^^ N, which was confirmed 

 by the constitution of the platinine salt, the formula of which was 

 found to be Cg H^g N, H CI, Pt. Cl^. The author details, as far as 

 the minute quantity at his disposal would allow, the properties of the 

 salts of this base. 



He then takes up the consideration of that portion of the mixed 

 basis, which distilled between 270° and 280°, which, after successive 

 rectifications, was found to give the formula Cj^ H. N, and to agree 

 in all its properties with the base formerly obtained by the author 

 from coal-tar, and described under the name of picoline. Aniline 



