SCIENTIFIC PROCEEDINGS 



Abstracts of Communications. 

 Seventy-eighth meeting. 



New York Post Graduate Medical School. 

 Vice-president Gies in the chair. 

 16 (1194) 



Structure of antineuritic hydroxy pyridines. 



By Robert R. Williams (by invitation). 



[From the Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Chemistry, 

 Washington, D. C] 



Experiments already reported have shown that hydroxy pyri- 

 dine exists in two readily interconvertible desmotropic crystalline 

 forms, one of which is able promptly to dissipate the acute 

 symptoms of polyneuritis gallinarum. In order to ascertain the 

 chemical structure of the physiologically active modification cura- 

 tive tests have been made with /3 hydroxy pyridine, a methoxy 

 pyridine, a methyl pyridone, trigonelline, nicotinic acid, and 

 betaine. On the basis of the results it may be concluded with 

 reasonable certainty that the relief of the paralysis by such 

 substances is intimately connected with a betaine-like ring. 



That such a structure is likewise an essential feature of natural 

 ''vitamines" has been adopted as a working hypothesis. It 

 affords a rational explanation of the instability of natural anti- 

 neuritic substances and appears to conform to other previous 

 observations. In this connection attention is called to the fact 

 that, on theoretical grounds, the existence of betaine-like tauto- 

 meric modifications of oxy- and amino-pyrimidines and purines 

 is not less probable than in the case of the corresponding deriva- 

 tives of pyridine. 



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