nae id ee 
i ae " 
A 
58 REPOrT OF SCHIMAED & Co. OCTOBER 1914 / APRIL 1915. 
of these optical results, as one cannot feces whether the balsate designated pure 
are really unadulterated. 
The etheral extract, obtained as above, of Hardwickia pinnata balsam deviated - 
—-1,3°; that of gurjun balsam, — 20,78°; that of Maracaibo copaiba balsam, + 0,409; 
-and that of Para copaiba balsam, — 0,83°. 
experiments with genuine balsam, he had always obtained only a few drops of a dark 
yellow oil, congealing to a waxlike mass and smelling like cinnamein, whereas almost 
all the artificial products yielded a very liquid distillate of a strange odour. In order 
to decide the question whether, on distilling with steam, genuine Peru balsam would 
likewise yield more volatile substances, an experiment on a larger scale was made. 
For this purpose 6 kilos of pure balsam were mixed with the same quantity of boiled-out 
river sand and most carefully distilled in a still composed of several tiers, with steam 
of only 1'/2 atmospheres of pressure, so as to avoid, as far as possible, the formation 
of wee. products. Out of 1000 litres of aqueous distillate, about 300 grams, 
, 2 p.c. of the quantity of balsam employed, of an oily substance were obidinee 
ae odour of which resembled that of Peru balsam. 
The balsam recovered after the distillation showed in its constants but little dif- 
ference from the original product; the qualitative tests”), however, were partly different. 
The nitric acid test showed, in opposition to the raw material, not a golden. yellow, 
but a bluish green colour, and with light petroleum quite a lot of a powdery substance 
was formed, which did not adhere to the glass. The modification of the qualitative 
reactions is evidently to be explained by the way of heating, and it seems quite pos- 
sible that, on account of unfavourable results of the nitric acid and light petroleum 
tests, balsams may sometimes be rejected which are not adulterated but have merely 
been altered by too much heating when they were obtained from the tree. The author’s 
opinion is that this ought to be taken into consideration when testing Peru balsam. | 
Balsam which does not give correctly the reactions mentioned cannot therefore. be 
marked as adulterated, if other indications are absent, but is nevertheless to be regarded 
as inferior. It must further be said that, when distilling Peru balsam with steam, certain 
quantities of its natural components will pass over, which smell just the same as the 
balsam itself and are thick, oily liquids of yellow colour, but they must not contain 
any extraneous essential oils and aromatics, the presence of which might be proved — 
by their smell or otherwise. 
The volatile oil referred to above, which passed over with the steam, was in - 
vestigated by A. W. Sortell’), and proved to be identical with cinnamein. It forms a 
yellowish liquid of agreeable smell and of the specific gravity of 1,0869 at 17°; 
&p»0 + 2,04°; sap. v. 245,7. It chiefly consists of the esters of benzyl alcohol with 
benzoic and cinnamic acids, the former preponderating considerably; peruviol*) is 
likewise said to be one of the components. 
As to the distillation of Peru balsam with steam, K. Dieterich*) says that in previous ~ 
q 
| 
— 
Phenol Methyl Ether, see Anisole. 
Vanillin. A so-called vanillin, adulterated ‘in an entirely incredible manner, was 
recently investigated in our laboratories. It had been sent us from Italy in its original 
1) Berichte der deutsch. pharm. Ges. 24 (1914), 225. — %) Comp. Report April 1914, 107. — 4%) Berichte 
der deutsch. pharm. Ges. 24 (1914), 233. — 4) Report April 1914, 80. 
