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IV. — On the Action of the Halogen Compounds of Ethyl and Amyl on some Vegetable 

 Alkaloids. By Mr Henry How, Assistant to Professor Anderson, Glasgow 

 University. 



(Read 1st May 1854.) 



The memoir which I have now the honour of presenting to the Society contains 

 part of a continued investigation, of which the first results were published 

 in a paper read, last year, before the Chemical Society of London.* The nature 

 of the materials experimented on is such, and the scope of the subject so large, 

 as to afford nothing more to all I have at present brought to light than the name 

 of a bare and partial outline ; yet the facts I have now to adduce, of some interest 

 in themselves, will increase that of those already made known, and prove of addi- 

 tional service in aiding to complete that desirable object, a knowledge of the che- 

 mical constitution of the natural bases. In the paper alluded to, I shewed that, . 

 by the action of iodide of ethyl and of methyl upon morphia and codeine, the two 

 most prominent alkaloids of opium, new salts are produced, in which the basic 

 molecules appear to assimilate by their chemical characters to the hypothetical 

 metal ammonium, or its oxide rather ; so that, in the system of Hofmann, these 

 peculiar results of natural, and as yet inimitable agencies, would take rank among 

 the nitryle bases. I say as yet inimitable, because it appeared that although one 

 of the new salts possessed precisely the same centesimal composition as the cor- 

 responding salt of codeine, the base contained in the artificial product was widely 

 different in appearance and properties from this alkaloid ; a fact which seems to 

 militate against a hope of forming the natural bases by this or similar means, and 

 to show that the building up of these bodies is a process peculiarly the function 

 of the vis vita? of the plants producing them ; at least that, easy as the transition 

 of morphia into codeine appears to be on a comparison of their respective rational 

 formulae, and since the adding the required two equivalents of carbon and hydro- 

 gen to the former proves of ready performance, the cause of the failure lies deeper 

 than in this difference merely, and that there are peculiarities in the construction of 

 the primary molecules which we are at present as far as ever from being able to imi- 

 tate. I further remarked, that so far as the amount of basic hydrogen, or com- 

 pounds supplying its place, is concerned, the fact that it proved the same in these 

 two alkaloids was possibly to be anticipated from their similar origin ; and that I 

 intended pursuing the subject with a view of ascertaining if all the bases of the 

 same plant were so far analogous. It will be seen that they do not appear to be 



* Quart. Journ. Chem. Soc , vol. vi. 

 VOL. XXI. PART I. H 



