28) 



in an optically active solvent? For if there be an .1 

 compound in any solvent, we always have to deal with su< i 

 active medium. Such an effect might be expected e. g., if both 

 ;uit ipodrx had a different solubility in the active solvent, or a different 

 diffusion-velocity. As to the solubility, we have indeed som- 

 t \p. rinu-ntal data which seem to indicate that the influence of 

 such a medium, if present at all, can only be very slight. 



T o 1 1 o c z o *) investigated the question whether racemic acid and 

 racemic mandelic acid, if partitioning between an inactive and an 

 optically active solvent, would show a partial seperation into 

 their antipodes. If water and laevogyratory amyl-akohol were used 

 as solvents, no effect could be detected in the case of racemic 

 acid, nor in that of the mandelic acid. 



He concludes that the process of solution is in this case not 

 accompanied by the formation of stronger or weaker compounds 

 between solute and solvents. 



Goldschmidt and Cooper 2 ) determined the solubility of 

 the optical antipodes of carvoxime in dextrogyrate limonene as a 

 solvent, and could not find any certain differences. The partial 

 separation of an externally compensated mixture of the ammonium- 

 sodium-tartrates in solutions of dextrose, as described by Kipping 

 and Pope 3 ), seems however a fact in contradiction with this, so that 

 a new investigation of the solubilities under these circumstances 

 appears necessary. On diffusion-velocities of active substances in 

 optically active solvents no investigations have hitherto been made. 



The experiments on the solubilities of such antipodes in active 

 solvents just referred to, may give some insight into the causes 

 of the negative results obtained hitherto in all attempts to 

 find a difference in reaction- velocity for both antipodes, if optically 

 active liquids be used as solvents. 



The influence of the solvent on the reaction-velocity is still a 

 very dark problem. It may be a pure "catalytic" one 4 ), in the 

 sense in which this expression is commonly used when there is 

 no further explanation possible for the questions at hand. 



1) St. Tolloczo, Zeits. f. phys. Chemie 20. 412. (1896). 



'*) H. Goldschmidt and H. C. Cooper, Zeits. f. phys. Chemie. 26. 714. (1898); 

 H. C. Cooper, Amer. Chem. Journ. 28. 255. (1900). 



8) F. S. Kipping and W. J. Pope, Proceed. Chem. Soc. London, (1897). p. 1 13. 



) J. H. Van 't Hoff, Vorlesungen ii. theor. u. phys. Chemie, /. (1898), p. 210, 

 216, 218. 



