CINCHONA. 
287 
;lnchonine, quinine, or a third variety of alkali. The result was, 
hat they obtained, not only a treble quantity of cinchonine, in all 
espects like that obtained from the grey bark, but also nearly twice 
IS much quinine as the same quantity of yellow bark had yielded. 
From ulterior experiments, made on large masses, it appears that 
quinine and cinchonine exist in all three species of bark, but the 
cinchonine is in greater quantity than the quinine in the grey bark, 
whilst in the yellow bark, the quinine greatly predominates.* 
j The mode of obtaining the cinchonine and quinine, is thus given 
by Magendie : — " Boil the bark in alcohol until it loses all its bitter- 
ness, evaporate the decoction to dryness in a water bath, dissolve 
the extract thus obtained in boiling water, strongly acidulated with 
hydrochloric acid,t add an excess of calcined magnesia, which, after 
boiling a few minutes, fixes the red colouring matter, and leaves the 
liquid clear: when cold, filtrate, and wash the magnesian precipitate 
with cold water, dry it on a stove, separate all the bitterness by 
repeated digestions in boiling alcohol, mix the alcoholic liquors, and 
the cinchonine wWl crystallize as the fluid cools.j" The cinchonine 
and quinine may be obtained by one operation, as follows: having 
obtained the sulphate of quinine by the above process, (operating on 
the Cinchona Cordifolia) decompose the mother waters, and the 
washings of that operation, which hold in solution the sulphate of 
[cinchonine, by magnesia or lime ; dissolve the quinine and cincho- 
nine contained in these liquors, by digesting the magnesian precipitate, 
when washed and well dried, in boiling alcohol ; if the spirit be suf- 
ficiently charged, the cinchonine which predominates will crystallize ; 
if it do not, further concentration is necessary. The cinchonine thus 
obtained, must undergo a re-crystallization to purify it ; this is done by 
dissolving it in a sufficient quantity of boiling alcohol. The follow- 
ing process of M. Henry, Jun. for obtaining the sulphate of quinine, 
is much more cheap and expeditious. He digests the bark repeatedly 
in hot water acidulated by sulphuric acid, blanches the liquors by 
means of hot lime, and washes the precipitate to separate the excess 
of lime ; this precipitate he repeatedly digests, when well drained, 
in alcohol at 36** (837) ; he then obtains, by distillation, a brown vis- 
, * Magendie, Formalaire. 
+ Muriatic acid of former chemists. 
J M. Magendie here speaks of the grey barJc, Cinchona Condaminea, for if the Cin- 
chona Cordifolia be sobjeoted to the same process, quinine is obtained, or rather the 
sulphate of qainine. 
