SYNTHESIS OF ALIMENTARY SUBSTANCES? 95 



sarcosine and glycocine have to acetic acid it being, indeed, the 

 ethyl-ammoniated form of salicic acid. 



Another /-carbon compound of artificial production, and of 

 great interest in an industrial point of view, is benzoene, or toluol 

 C 7 H8, which Fittig and Tollens have recently obtained from 

 phenene or benzol C6H6. Starting from these two bodies, we 

 may procure all the so called coal-tar colours, with the brilliancy 

 and variety of which most of us are now familiar. The red 

 base or rosaniline C 20 Hi 9 N 3 , the violet base or triethyl-rosaniline 

 C 2 6H 31 N 3 , and the blue base or triphenyl-rosaniline C 3 8H 31 N 3 , 

 being producible in this way from their constituent elements, 

 furnish us with admirable illustrations of the constructive powers 

 of modern organic chemistry. 



(101.) Thus have I illustrated to you the mode in which 

 chemists can nowadays, without any recourse to vitality, build 

 up primary molecules containing as many as seven atoms of 

 carbon, either from carbonic acid, water, and ammonia, the 

 materials out of which living organisms construct identical or 

 similar molecules, or else from the elementary substances, carbon, 

 hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, upon which living organisms 

 can exert no plastic action whatever. I might even proceed 

 further, but should then be obliged to depart from the regular 

 sequence I have hitherto followed. Moreover, my object has 

 been rather to illustrate to you the general mode of procedure 

 than to make known to you the utmost limits that have as yet 

 been attained. Of the three great classes of alimentary sub- 

 stances, the oleaginous are quite, and the saccharine almost within 

 our reach. The albuminous, indeed, are still far beyond us; 

 and no wonder, since their very constitution is at present not 

 only unknown, but unsuspected. In their case, however, as in 

 that of many other bodies, so soon as we succeed in unravelling 

 the mystery of their natural composition, so soon may we aspire 

 confidently to the work of their artificial reconstruction. 



(102.) Only a few words more, which I will borrow from my 

 friend Dr. Frankland, who has himself contributed very largely 

 to synthetic methods and results. 'It would be difficult,' said he, 



