— 88 — 
/ 
Wintergreen Oil, natural. The American market continues 
firm. Our New York branch, which has secured large parcels by con- 
tract at favourable prices, invoiced us the last consignments without 
advance in price, but holds out the certain prospect of a rise. 
Artificial methyl salicylate has been depressed to the lowest 
limits, proportionate to the value of salicylic acid, but this has not 
promoted its use in any way whatever. 
We have in our Reports repeatedly^) called attention to the ob- 
servation, made from various sides, as to the wide distribution of 
salicylic acid in the vegetable Kingdom, and inter alia also pointed to 
the presence of this ester in the common pansy, Viola tricolor^). In- 
duced by a botanical study on this plant by H. Kramer, in which 
it was stated that the fresh sprouting buds of Viola tricolor, when 
rubbed between the fingers, emitted the odour of wintergreen oil, we 
distilled at the time a fairly large quantity of the fresh flowering plant, 
when we obtained an essential oil which had a strong odour like 
wintergreen oil, and which consisted almost entirely of methyl salicylate, 
as was proved by the examination. 
The same observations have now again been made by A. Desmou- 
liere^), who appears to have no knowledge of our previous examinations, 
as he does not take our priority in this respect into consideration. 
According to Desmouliere's further examinations, methyl sali- 
cylate is not present as such in the pansy, but, as the case of Betula 
tenia and other plants, occurs in the form of glucoside, which in the 
presence of water, under the influence of a ferment, is split up into 
methyl ester of salicylic acid and grape-sugar. 
Desmouliere has succeeded in separating from Viola tricolor a 
glucoside which both on heating with dilute sulphuric acid, and by 
the action of the ferment contained in the plant, split off methyl sali- 
cylate. This glucoside, which is undoubtedly identic with gaultherin, 
could only be obtained in amorphous form, whilst the ferment (betulase 
or gaultherase) was not isolated at all. 
From the fact that the odour of wintergreen oil only occurs 
when the herb is rubbed, Desmouliere concludes that the glu- 
coside and the ferment are contained in different cells of the plant, 
and solely for this reason were unable to act already previously on 
each other. It is probable that in the other Violaceck the same con- 
ditions prevail, but Desmouliere has as yet confirmed this only for 
the cultivated pansy. 
1) Report April 1898, 55; October 1898, 51; April 1899, 51; October 
1899, 58. 
2) Report October 1899, 58. 
^) Journ. Pharm. Chim. VI. 19 (1904), 121. . 
