CHOLIN. 297 



concentrated hydrochloric acid was necessary in order to obtain any 

 cholin from the brain. This result of Brieger's is somewhat at var- 

 iance with that of Marino-Zuco (see Relazwne, etc., pages 29, 30 

 and 38) who obtained from 25 grams of lecithin, by the method of 

 Stas, a small quantity of the aurochlorid of a base, while from a sim- 

 ilar amount he obtained more relevant quantities by the method of 

 Dragendorff. 



The occurrence of cholin in the vegetable kingdom would be in- 

 explicable to us at present were it not that we now know of the ex- 

 istence of lecithin-like bodies in plants, from the decomposition of 

 which substantially the same products are obtained as from the 

 lecithin obtained from the animal tissues. The existence of such a 

 body in plants was first predicted by Scheibler in 1870, who was 

 led to this conclusion in his celebrated study of beet^root sugar 

 because of the presence of oleic acid, glycerin, phosphoric acid, and 

 betain, as well as cholesterin, in the beet-root extracts. This hy- 

 pothesis was confirmed by Hoppe-Seyler, who, in 1879, found a 

 lecithin-substance in yeast. Schulze found a similar compound in 

 the cotyledons of lupine, while Jacobson observed its presence in 

 mustard-seeds, in fenugreek-seeds, in maize and wheat, in the fat 

 from beans, peas, vetch, and lupines. Heckel showed its presence 

 in globularia, and Lippmann has found it in beet-root. According 

 to Hoppe-Seyler, this lecithin-like substance exists in all vegetable 

 cells undergoing development. Schulze and Likiernik (1891) were 

 the first to prepare lecithin in a pure condition from plants. It 

 was found to possess the same properties and yield the same decom- 

 position products as lecithin from animal tissues. Up to the present 

 time lecithin has always been supposed to contain, as an essential 

 component, a radical which gives rise to cholin on saponification, 

 while on the other hand the fatty acids entering its molecule are 

 well known to be replaceable by one another. Thus we may have 

 a di-stearin lecithin as well as di-olein lecithin. The existence of 

 several lecithins in the yolk of eggs has been recognized for some 

 time, and according to Schulze and Likiernik this is also true of the 

 lecithins in plants. Recent observations of Lippmann (Ber., 20, 

 3206) show that the above basic radical, hitherto regarded as con- 

 stant in lecithin, may possibly be capable of replacement by other 

 similar radicals. He found on saponifying with baryta two different 

 specimens of lecithin, both obtained from beet-root, that while one of 

 them yielded oleic acid, glycerin, phosphoric acid, and betain, the 

 other lecithin gave oleic acid (and some other fatty acids), glycerin, 

 phosphoric acid, and cholin, with no betain — at least not in isolable 

 quantity. This remarkable difference has led Lippmann to suggest 

 an explanation which, while it may not be the correct one, neverthe- 

 less possesses a high degree of probability. According to him, the 

 lecithin molecule may contain interchangeable basic radicals in the 



