CARNIXE, CARNOSINE, CARNITINE. 549 



with difficulty in cold water, but more readily in warm. It is insoluble 

 in alcohol and ether. It dissolves in warm hydrochloric acid and yields 

 u salt crystallizing in shining needles, which gives a double compound 

 with platinum chloride. Its watery solution is precipitated by silver 

 nitrate, but this precipitate is dissolved neither by ammonia nor by 

 warm nitric acid. Carnine does not give the so-called WEIDEL'S xanthine 

 reaction. Its watery solution is precipitated by basic lead acetate; 

 but the lead compound may be dissolved on boiling. 



Carnine is prepared by the following method : The meat extract diluted with 

 water is completely precipitated by baryta-water. The filtrate is precipitated 

 by basic lead acetate, the lead precipitate boiled with water, filtered while hot, 

 and sulphuretted hydrogen passed through the filtrate. Remove the lead sul- 

 phide from the filtrate and concentrate strongly. The concentrated solution 

 is now completely precipitated with silver nitrate, the precipitate washed free 

 from silver chloride by ammonia, and the carnine silver oxide suspended in 

 water and treated with sulphuretted hydrogen. 



Carnosine, C 9 H 14 N 4 O 3 , has been isolated by GULEWITSCH and AMIRADZIBI 

 from meat extracts. It is a base which is readily soluble in water, crystallizing 

 in flat needles. It is precipitated by phosphotungstic acid and by silver nitrate 

 in the presence of an excess of barium hydrate, and forms a copper compound 

 which crystallizes in hexagonal plates. Carnosine, which also occurs, according 

 to KRIMBERG, in fresh meat to the extent of 1.3 p. m., is probably a histidine 

 derivative (GULEWITSCH) which is identical with ignotine, isolated by KUTSCHER 

 from meat extract. According to KUTSCHER l these extractive bodies are more 

 likely isomeric bodies. 



Carnitine, C 7 H 15 NO 3 , is another base isolated by GULEWITSCH and KRIMBERG 

 from meat extracts, having a strong alkaline reaction, and is very readily soluble 

 in water, and which KRIMBERG also found in fresh meat. Carnitine according to 

 KRIMBERG 2 is a trimethylamine derivative and probably trimethyloxybutyro- 



/O -CO 



betaine with the formula (CH 3 ) 3 N<^ . According to him 



\CK 2 -CH.OH-CH 2 



it is also very probably identical with novaine prepared by KUTSCHER from meat 

 extracts, which is also a trimethylamine derivative. It gives crystalline double 

 compounds with platinum, gold and mercuric chlorides, among which the follow- 

 ing, C 7 H 15 NO 3 2HgCl 2 , with a melting-point of 196-197 C., is especially used in the 

 isolation of the base. 



From LEIBIG'S extract of beef KUTSCHER has isolated besides the above- 

 mentioned ignotine and novaine, several other bodies, neosine, C 6 H 17 NO 2 , which 

 according to KUTSCHER and ACKERMANN is a homologue of choline, vitiatine 

 (as gold salt, C 5 H 14 N 6 .2HC1.2AuCl 3 ), carnomuscarine, methylguanidine (also found 

 by GULEWITSCH), oblitine, Gi 8 H 38 N 2 O5, which probably contains two novaine 

 groups, which corresponds well with KRIMBERG 's 3 view, and also choline and 

 neurine. ZUNZ 4 has been able to obtain from fresh meat the three so-called hexone 



1 Gulewitsch and Amiradzibi, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 30; Gulewitsch, ibid., 

 50, 51, and 52; Krimberg, ibid., 48; Kutscher, ibid., 50 and 51. 



2 Gulewitsch and Krimberg, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 45; Krimberg, ibid., 49, 

 50, 53, 56. 



3 Kutscher, Zeitschr. f. Unters. d. Nahrungs- u. Genussmittel, 10, 11, Centjalbl. 

 f. Physiol., 19 and 21, Zeitschr. f. physiol. Chem., 48, 49, 50, 51, with Ackermann, 

 ibid., 56; Gulewitsch, ibid., 47; Krimberg, ibid., 56. 



4 Zunz. reference in Centralbl. f. Physiol., 18, 852. 



