272 CHEMISTRY OF THE PTOMAINS. 



cases a small amount of a dibenzoyl-compound, crystallizing in small 

 white plates and needles, and melting at 175°-177°, was obtained. 

 This corresponds with the putrescin compound. No diamins were 

 found in two cholera-urines. It would, therefore, seem that in 

 Asiatic cholera diamins are not usually found in the feces, and since 

 they are present in the feces and urine of cystinuria without bad re- 

 sults, it is evident that they cannot exercise any great action as in- 

 testinal poisons in cholera. 



In a diarrhoea, where a coliform bacillus was present, Roos found 

 both cadaverin and putrescin in the discharges, but not in the urine 

 of one case. In another case cadaverin was likewise probably 

 present. Werigo has reported cadaverin from the intestinal con- 

 tents of a woman with intestinal fistula. He would consider cadav- 

 erin as a normal product of pancreatic digestion. 



Brieger was the first to show that diamins were absent from 

 normal feces. Baumann and Udrdnszky confirmed this observation 

 with reference to man and the dog. The discharges of various 

 diseases gave negative results except in typhoid stools, where a 

 very small amount of dibenzoyl compounds, melting at 140°, was 

 found. Rods, in 1891, was able to find but two cases with diamins 

 in the feces. In one case of dysentery and malaria of tropical origin 

 cadaverin was found, and in a case of cholerine putrescin was de- 

 tected. It has also been obtained from caviar. Lobisch and Roki- 

 tansky have reported it in bronchiectasic sputum. Werigo has 

 obtained it from pancreas extracts before putrefaction has set in, 

 while Garcia isolated it from putrefying meat and pancreas together 

 with putrescin and hexamethylenediamin. 



At least one definite source of cadaverin is known and that is 

 the hexon base lysin (which see). By allowing lysin or di-amido 

 caproic acid to putrefy Ellinger (1900) obtained cadaverin. The 

 presence of the lysin group in the proteid molecule is therefore nec- 

 essary to the formation of this diamin. Thus, while lysin forms in 

 sterile auto-digestion of the pancreas, in putrefaction of the latter 

 cadaverin results. 



Cadaverin occurs in the mercuric chlorid precipitate, from which 

 it is isolated according to the methods given on pages 266 and 278. 

 For its isolation and separation from putrescin by the use of benzoyl 

 chlorid, see page 266. 



This base was at first ascribed the formula CgHj^Nj, but subsequent 

 researches led Brieger and Bocklisch to the adoption of the formula 

 CjHj^N^. In 1883, Ladenburg prepared, as the first step in the syn- 

 thesis of piperidin, a base, pentamethylenediamin, possessing the same 

 empirical formula as cadaverin, and later (^Ber. chem. Ges., 18, 2956) 

 he showed the possibility of the identity of these two bases. This led 

 to their direct comparison and the successful establishment of their 

 identity. In fact, Ladenburg, as a crucial test of the identity, con- 



