136 M. Strecker on the Relations of some Organic Bases. 



The reaction was terminated in two or three days ; the contents 

 were digested with strong alcohol, filtered, and the alkaline 

 liquor neutralized with acetic acid and distilled. When the water 

 and alcohol had passed over, the thermometer rapidly rose, and 

 between 180° and 190° a colourless oily liquid distilled over, 

 which was found to have all the properties, physical and chemical, 

 of Wurtz's propyl glycol. 



Ordinary glycol was converted into alcohol by an analogous 

 process. Hydrochloric glycol, diluted with half its volume of 

 water, was mixed with excess of sodium-amalgam. When left 

 at the ordinary temperature, it became converted into ordinary 

 alcohol ; at a higher temperature the character of the reaction 

 was different, some oxide of ethylene being formed. The pro- 

 duct of the reaction was distilled off in the water-bath, and the 

 distillate, dried by carbonate of potash and by caustic baryta, 

 was found to have the composition and properties of ordinary 

 alcohol. 



It is exceedingly probable that the transformation of propylic 

 glycol into propylic alcohol would take place just in the same 

 way. 



Strecker has published* a very interesting investigation on 

 the relations between guanine, xanthine, caffeine, theobromine, 

 and creatinine. 



He describes a modification of the method of preparing gua- 

 nine, and also describes some compounds which it forms with 

 nitrate of silver and with baryta, and which are analogous to the 

 compounds with sarcine and xanthine. 



Unger found, by oxidizing guanine with chlorate of potash, 

 that an acid was formed which had the formula C ,0 H 5 N 4 0°, 

 and which he named peruric acid. These experiments have been 

 repeated by Strecker, who has found that the acid in question 

 is parabanic acid, C 6 'H 2 IN 2 6 . The mother- liquor contains, in 

 addition to this, the hydrochlorate of a new organic base, which 

 he calls gudnidine. It is a strongly alkaline body, which forms 

 neutral crystalline salts with most acids. The free base is a cry- 

 stalline mass with a caustic taste, which rapidly attracts water 

 and carbonic acid from the air, and thus is unfitted for direct 

 analysis. Its formula, C 2 H 6 ]\ 3 , was determined from the ana- 

 lysis of its platinum-salt, C 2 H 5 N 3 HC1, PtCl 2 ; its carbonate, 

 C 2 H 6 N 3 HO,C0 2 ; and its oxalate, C 2 Il s N 8 2HO, C 4 ll 2 8 . 



The decomposition of guanine may be thus expressed : — 



C l0 H 5 N 5 O 2 + 2HO + GO = C 6 II 9 N 2 6 -t C 2 ll 5 N 3 + 2C0 2 . 



Guanine. Parabanic acid. Guanidinc. 



* Licbig's Annalen, May 18G1. 



