On the Hyposulphites of the Organic Alkaloids. 47 



the Germanic— or as we too limitedly designate it, the Anglo- 

 Saxon— race is entering on fresh aggressions and claiming a 

 wider theatre for the arena of its triumphs. Whether the 

 stirring among the Lithuanic and Slavonic races of Eastern 

 Europe, which now thrills us with the rumours of war, and 

 shakes all Europe with the coming struggle, be any symptom 

 of the long dormant energies of her Scytho-Sarmatian stock 

 awaking at length to assert the claims of a long-proscribed 

 priority of birthright, is a question which had attracted the 

 notice of Panslavic students of ethnology before it forced itself 

 on the attention of European diplomatists. 



On the Hyposulphites of the Organic Alkaloids. By Henry 

 How, Professor of Chemistry and Natural History, King's 

 College, Windsor, Nova Scotia. 



In a recent communication to the Royal Society of Edin- 

 burgh,* I mentioned that when strychnine is exposed to the 

 action of sulphide of ammonium, the hyposulphite of this base 

 is formed, together with a peculiar and distinct product whose 

 nature is not yet made out. The experiment affording these 

 indications was made with free access of air, and I thought it 

 extremely probable that the production of the hyposulphite 

 was to be attributed in a great measure, if not entirely, to the 

 formation in the first place of the hyposulphite of ammonia, 

 from absorption of oxygen by the sulphide of ammonium, and 

 the subsequent displacement of the volatile, by the fixed 

 alkali, the transformation of the sulphur salt of ammonium 

 being represented by the equation, 



NH 4 S, HS + 40 = NH 4 0, S 2 2 + HO. 



I reasoned that if the hyposulphite of strychnine really re- 

 sulted from this succession of changes, the other alkaloids 

 should present a similar deportment under the same circum- 

 stances. I, therefore, made corresponding experiments with 

 some of these, and found that in the majority of the cases I 

 tried, their hyposulphites are readily obtained; and they form 



* Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., vol. xxi., page 33. 



