418 
CHEMISTRY: JOHNSON AND HADLEY 
mote infection when injected into the cerebrospinal meninges. This 
fluid is an immune serum obtained from monkeys or human beings previ- 
ously recovered from poliomyelitis. The immune serum carries neu- 
tralizing principles which inactivate the virus as it passes from the blood 
into the cerebrospinal fluid. This observation is in harmony with the 
curative action exercised by the serum, as was first shown some years 
ago in inoculated monkeys,^ and has recently been confirmed for human 
cases of epidemic poliomeylitis. ^ 
1 Amoss, H. L., and Taylor, E., /. Exp. Med., 25, 1917, (507). 
2 Flexner, S., and Amoss, H. L., lUd., 19, 1914, (411). 
3 Flexner, S., and Amoss, H. L., Ibid., 25, 1917, (525). 
^ Flexner, S., and Lewis, P. A., /. Amer. Med. Assn., 54, 1910, (1780); 55, 1910, (662). 
^ Amoss, H. L., and Chesney, A. M., /. Exp. Med., 25, 1917, (581). 
THE BEHAVIOR ON HYDROLYSIS OF THE SIMPLEST SECONDARY 
NUCLEOSIDE ON THYMINE 
By Treat B. Johnson and Sidney E. Hadley 
SHEFFIELD SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL, YALE UNIVERSITY 
Communirated by L. B. Mendel. May 5. 1917 
In a previous publication from the Sheffield Chemical Laboratory 
Johnson and Hadley^ have shown that the ethyl ether of the secondary 
uracil-nucleoside I undergoes a very imique transformation when sub- 
jected to hydrolysis by heating with hydrobromic acid in aqueous solu- 
tion. Ethyl bromide is first evolved with formation of the nucleoside 
II. This pyritnidine then undergoes a profound molecular change on 
prolonged heating and is transformed, with evolution of carbon dioxide, 
into a combination of unknown structure having the empirical formula 
C5H8ON2. 
NH— CO NH— CO 
CO CH C5H8ON2+CO2 
OH 
/ 
NH— C CH CH3 
II. 
Great biochemical interest is attached to nucleoside transformations 
of this character, and we have now in progress an investigation planned 
to establish experimentally the structure of this interesting product of 
hydrolysis. 
CO CH 
II OC2H6 
II / 
NH— CCHCHs 
L 
