ELEMI. 151 



manner: the watery liquid left in the still after the distillation of 28 lb. 

 of Manila elemi was poured off from the mass of hard resin, and having 

 been duly concentrated, it deposited together with a dark extractiform 

 matter, colourless acicular crystals of bryoidin. The deposit in question 

 having been drained and allowed to dry, the bryoidin may be separated 

 by boiling water or by cold ether. We found the latter the more 

 convenient; it readily takes up the bryoidin contaminated only with a 

 little resin. The ethereal solution should be allowed to evaporate and 

 the residual crystalline mass boiled in water, when the solution (which 

 is colourless), poured off from the resin, will deposit upon cooling 

 brilliant tufts of acicular crystals of bryoidin. The boiling in water 

 requires to be several times repeated before the whole of the bryoidin 

 can be removed ; the latter sometimes cr3"stallizes as a mossy arborescent 

 growth. Bryoidin is a neutral substance, of bitter taste, scarcely 

 soluble in cold water, but dissolving easily in boiling water, or in alcohol 

 or ether. When a little is placed in a watch-glass, covered with a plate 

 of glass, and then gently heated over a lamp, it sublimes in delicate 

 needles. To obtain it perfectly pure, it is best to sublime it in a current 

 of dry carbonic acid. Thus purified its fusing point is 133 "o C. ; after 

 fusion it concretes as a transparent, amorphous mass, which if im- 

 mersed in glycerin and raised to the temperature of 135° C, suddenly 

 crystallizes. 



We have observed that if the filtered mother-liquor of bryoidin after 

 complete cooling and standing for a day or two is warmed, it becomes 

 turbid and that in a few minutes there separate from it long white flocks 

 like bits of paper or wool, which do not disappear either by warming 

 or by cooling the liquid ; under the microscope they are seen to consist 

 partly of thread-like, partly of acicular crystals. It is possible this 

 substance is Baup's Breidine; we found it to fuse at 135° C, to be 

 neutral, and to crystallize from weak alcohol exactly like bryoidin. 

 Both it and bryoidin look very voluminous in water, but are 

 extremely small in weight, and are present in the drug in but a 

 very small amount. The composition of bryoidin agrees with the 

 formula C^oH^^O^ which might be written thus (C'Hy-l-30H-. But 

 it contains no water of crystallization. In the vapour of dry hydro- 

 chloric gas, brj'oidin assumes a fine red colour, turning violet, then 

 blue, and lastly green. This behaviour is not at all displayed by 

 amyrin. 



The liquids from which bryoidin is obtained contain an amorphous 

 brown substance of intensely bitter taste, at the same time somewhat 

 ai'omatic. It is decomposed by dilute mineral acids, evolving a very 

 peculiar strong odour. 



Buri^ isolated from Manila Elemi an extremely small amount of 

 Eleraic acid, C^H^O\ It is in very brilliant crystals, much larger than 

 those of the other constituents of elemi. Although we have before us 

 some prisms of the acids several millimetres long, it has been found 

 impossible to ascertain their crystallogi'aphic character, each of the 

 prisms being formed of very intimately aggregated crystals. Elemic 

 acid melts at 21 5° C; its alcoholic solution decidedly reddens litmus. 

 Elemate of potassium is a crystalline salt. 



1 Phnrm. Joui-v. \'iii. (1S78) 601. 



