130 
DR. A. W. HOFMANN’S RESEARCHES REGARDING THE 
congeners, are well-marked instances of such increasing complexity. The constitu- 
tion of the natural alkaloids may be still more intricate. However, a series of well- 
devised experiments will not fail to exhibit the framework of these substances, an 
inspection of which will enable us to reconstruet them with the same facility as we 
build up our series of alcohol-bases. 
The powerful and defined action of bromide of ethyl which I have pointed out in 
this paper will, it would appear, materially assist in the solution of this problem. 
We might by its aid succeed in ascertaining the state of substitution in which the 
ammonia exists in these compounds, or in other words, whether the alkaloid in ques- 
tion is an amidogen-, imidogen-, or nitrile-base. Some preliminary experiments made 
with two natural alkaloids, with nicotine and coniine, more closely allied, it is true, 
with the aniline-group than quinine, &c., appear to promise a harvest of interesting 
results. These substances evidently contain still basic hydrogen, for on mixing them 
with bromide of ethyl, they are rapidly attacked, with formation of the hydrobromates 
of two new bases, of which the salt of the nicotine-derivative is obtained in large 
beautiful crystals. An extension of this study to the bases of the cinchona bark and 
of opium, and to the bases of the series C„ N O4 (glycocine, sarcosine, leucine, &c.), 
whose constitution is at present still very enigmatical, may perhaps lead to similar 
results. These substances, complicated as their construction may appear at the first 
glance, will perhaps be found of a surprising simplicity when subjected to a closer 
examination. I may here quote the curious results which various chemists have ob- 
tained by treating with nitric acid and other powerful agents several of the natural 
alkaloids, results from which it would almost appear that several of these alkaloids, 
brucine and narcotine for instance, do actually contain methyl or ethyl, inasmuch 
as their decomposition seems to give rise to the formation of compounds of these 
radicals. The presence of such radicals as methyl and ethyl in natural alkaloids, is 
in itself scarcely a startling fact. We are still perfectly in the dark as to whether 
the pyroxylic spirit which we obtain in the dry distillation of wood is actually a 
product of destructive distillation, or whether it pre-existed in the wood before the 
process. At all events we know from the splendid researches of M. Cahours on the 
oil of Gaultheria procumbens^ that methyl-compounds are actually secreted in the 
organism of plants. Ammonia in a nascent state coming into contact with these 
and other compounds, might easily give rise to the formation of basic substitution- 
products. In a recent communication. Dr. Stenhouse* has proved that whenever 
ammonia separates from nitrogenous organic matter, by dry distillation, putrefac- 
tion, &c., we have invariably a formation of organic bases attending the evolution of 
this compound. 
However, the question as to whether brucine and narcotine actually yield alcoholic 
compounds being still sub judice, it is better to defer for the present any farther 
speculations which might present themselves. 
* Transactions of the Royal Society for 1850, Art. II. p. 56. 
