458 CHEMISTRY OF THE LEVCOMAINS. 



off the odor of acetamid, though ordinarily in the cold it has a slight 

 cadaveric odor. When heated, the substance evolves an odor of 

 roast meat, carbonizes in part, and yields ammonia and methylamin. 

 The crystals are amphoteric in reaction, are soluble in cold water, 

 and can be recrystallized from boiling 99 per cent, alcohol. 



It forms a hydrochlorid crystallizing in plumose needles, and a 

 very soluble platinochlorid ; the aurochlorid crystallizes with diffi- 

 culty. Like creatinin, it is precipitated by zinc chlorid ; the yel- 

 lowish white precipitate dissolves with partial dissociation on warm- 

 ing, and on cooling separates as isolated or stellate groups of fine 

 needles which possess the composition (C5H,„N^0)jZnClj . Silver 

 nitrate throws down, in the cold, a flocculent precipitate which like- 

 wise dissolves on heating, and recrystallizes in needles. Mercuric 

 chlorid produces a yellowish white precipitate. It is not precipitated 

 by oxaJic or nitric acid, nor by potassium mercuric chlorid, or iodin 

 in potassium iodid. Tannin produces in time a slight turbidity, 

 while sodium phosphomolybdate gives a heavy yellowish precipitate. 

 This base is distinguished from the members of the acid group by 

 not giving a precipitate with copper acetate, even on heating. 



On gentle oxidation with potassium permanganate it is converted 

 into a black substance insoluble in acids and alkalis, and resembling 

 azulmic acid. By treatment with recently precipitated mercuric 

 oxid it yields a substance which can be recrystallized from boiling 

 93 per cent, alcohol in needles which possess a slight alkaline reac- 

 tion, and forms a slightly soluble, crystalline platinochlorid. This 

 new substance is precipitated from alcoholic solution, by the addi- 

 tion of ether, as a mass of beautiful, white silky needles resembling 

 caffein. These crystals melt at 174° ; caffein melts at 178°. 



Xantho-creatinin, given in fairly large doses, is poisonous, pro- 

 ducing in animals depression, somnolence, and extreme fatigue, 

 accompanied by frequent defecation and vomiting. In its general 

 properties this base resembles creatin very much, and it was on 

 account of this resemblance and its yellow color that it was named 

 xantho-creatinin. This relation becomes especially evident since 

 the base appears in the physiologically active muscle at the same 

 time with creatinin, sometimes in about one-tenth of the quantity of 

 the latter. Monari found this base in the aqueous extract of the 

 muscles of an exhausted dog, and also in the urine of soldiers tired 

 by several hours' march. He also claimed to have demonstrated its 

 presence in the urine of a dog after previous injection of creatinin. 

 Stadthagen was not able to isolate this base from his urine after pro- 

 longed muscular exercise, and arrived at the conclusion that it does 

 not occur in urine, and that Monari's base was an impure crea^ 

 tinin. Colasanti, in 1884, and again in 1891, isolated from lion's 

 urine by Neubauefs zinc chlorid method for creatinin the latter 

 compound and a yellow body which crystallized as canary-yellow, 



