. 
1907.| Desteny of Cholesterol in the Anmal Organsm. 225 
description than that previously used; 982 grammes of dried feces were 
obtained, and were treated as before. The residue obtained weighed 
564 grammes. From this we isolated 0:25 gramme of hippocoprosterol, and 
the mother liquors on evaporation deposited an oil, which on standing showed 
under the microscope traces of crystalline matter in the form of six-sided 
plates and clusters of sword blades, but in too small quantity for further 
examination and identification.* 
General Conclusions. 
1. Hippocoprosterol isolated from the feces of the horse by Bondzynski 
and others is not a product of animal metabolism, but is a constituent of the 
grass taken as food, and is passed unchanged by all herbivorous animals when 
fed on grass. The name is, therefore, misleading, and we propose to rename 
the substance chortosterol (yvopros, grass). 
2. Chortosterol is an alcohol having the formula C2;H4O or Co7H5,0. 
It is not possible at present to decide definitely between these, though our 
analyses in every case agree better with the former. 
3. If we consider the numerous vegetable cholesterols which have the 
properties of unsaturated monatomic alcohols and the formula C2;H4sO + H20 
as isomeric substances constituting the phytosterol group, chortosterol 
cannot be regarded as a simple reduction product of any one of them in the 
same way that coprosterol is supposed to be related to cholesterol. It is 
possible that the substance may be derived from some member of this group, 
or vice versd, by some rearrangement of the ring structure during the 
development of the plant. We are at present engaged in some experiments 
on this point. This is, perhaps, supported by the fact that chortosterol, 
unlike other members of the cholesterol or phytosterol groups, gives none: 
of the usual colour reactions, for Windaust has shown that when the 
unsaturated open side chain of the cholesterol and phytosterol molecules 
is condensed to a ring, the products obtained show the colours feebly{ or 
not at all. . 
4. In all the experiments we have made we have never found any 
cholesterol in the feces of the herbivora. If the view of Flint and other 
observers that cholesterol is an excrementitious product got rid of in the 
feeces through the agency of the bile, we should certainly have expected 
* This substance was derived from the bran given to the animals, as on extraction of 
a sample of bran we obtained a body, crystallising in the same forms, which melted at 
137°°5 C., and appeared to be identical with Burian’s sitosterol. 
t ‘Ber.,’ vol. 40, pp. 2637 and 3681 (1907). 
{ Cf. Diels and Abderhalden, ‘ Ber.,’ vol. 39, p. 884 (1906). 
