SOME GENERAL RESULTS 
ON THE 
LOCALISATION OF ALKALOIDS IN PLANTS 
BY 
L. ERRERA (1 
Microchemistry does not claim in any way to supplant chemis- 
try. But its great value consists in permitting an approach to 
problems unattainable by ordinary analytical methods, and to 
accomplish for physiological (and also for petrographic) chemistry 
the work of penetration and localisation which the microscope 
realises for structure. 
For a long time botanical microchemistry Hee dealt with a 
limited number of bodies and reactions : cellulose, starch, reducing 
sugars, inulin, proteid matters, asparagin, tannins, silica, and 
calcium compounds. Gradually a series of interesting bodies have 
been added to the original scanty list, such as sulphur, glycogen, 
salts of iron and other bases, a myrosin, certain glycosids, 
prussic acid, etc. 
Although a few valuable preliminary researches had already 
appeared, a more methodical attempt to localise, in the various 
tissues, the important group of alkaloids was made in a paper 
I published in 1887, in collaboration with two of my pupils, 
(1) Cette note a paru dans les Proceedings of the British Association. Session de 
Cambridge, 1904. 
