Sor. 



i> f J.. 



THE PHILIPPINE 



Journal op Science 



Vol. XI 



A. Chemical and Geological Sciences 

 AND THE Industries 



MARCH, 1916 



No. 2 



THE CHEMISTRY OF THE VITAMINES ^ 



By Robert R. Williams 

 (From the Laboratory of Organic Chemistry, Bureau of Science, 



Manila, P. I.) 



Since the appearance of the last article in which I collaborated 

 with Doctor Vedder,' I have made more than forty attempts 

 to obtain pure vitamine from large quantities of rice polishings. 

 While other methods were tried, the prime endeavor was to 

 perfect the method described by Funk,^ as it appeared to be 

 preferable to that of Edie et al.* or Suzuki " and his coworkers, 

 with whose methods I have experimented. The modification 

 of Wellman, Eustin, and Scott * was also tested. It failed to 

 facilitate the final purification of the vitamine and apparently 

 resulted in greater loss of curative power in the vitamine frac- 

 tion. On the other hand, it possesses the great advantage of 

 effecting an enormous saving in the quantities of phosphotung- 

 stic acid and barium hydroxide used. 



In addition to these methods, many other precipitants have 

 been tried, such as mercuric acetate and zinc and cuprous 

 salts, but of these none produced promising results and may 

 be dismissed. Other attempts were directed to finding a better 

 method of decomposing the phosphotungstates produced by 

 Funk's method. For this purpose amyl alcohol was used as 



* Received for publication April 26, 1915. 

 ^ 'This Journal, Sec. B (1913), 8, 175. 



•Joum. Physiol. (1911), 43, 395; (1912), 45, 75; Ergeb. d. Physiol. 

 (1913), 13, 125. 



*Bio-chem. Journ. (1912), 6, 234. 



'Bio-chem. Zeitschr. (1912), 43, 89. ' 



*Am. Journ. Prev. Med. (1914), 1, 295. 



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