1 1 8 Schunck . — The Chemistry of Chlorophyll . 
base has been employed, a kind of chlorophyll is obtained, 
though not the natural chlorophyll of plants. In order to 
explain what I mean, I will assume, as Hoppe-Seyler does 
with regard to his chlorophyllan, that chlorophyll is a kind of 
lecithin, of which phyllocyanin forms as it were the nucleus. 
Its composition may be roughly represented by the formula 
x phyllocyanin .xy, 
in which x represents an unknown acid, or it may be more 
than one acid — e. g. phosphoric acid and margaric acid — y an 
unknown base, it may be choline, the constituents or their 
residues being linked together to form a complex, such as is 
frequently met with in substances of organic origin. Now 
when this complex is acted on by an acid it is more or less 
rapidly decomposed ; if hydrochloric acid be used the final 
result is the formation of phyllocyanin hydrochloride, which in 
presence of much water is decomposed, leaving free phyllo- 
cyanin, and of the hydrochloride of the unknown base, while 
the acid is set at liberty. If ^ be a fatty acid, and the 
solution be an alcoholic one, it is possible that some of the 
acid may be deposited along with the phyllocyanin, and that 
a portion of the fatty matter, which is always found mixed 
with the deposited phyllocyanin, may be due to the decom- 
position of the chlorophyll by acid. When caustic alkali acts 
on chlorophyll, the base y is removed, potassium, sodium, or 
ammonium entering into the complex, though the action is 
not so simple as in the case of acids, since the phyllocyanin 
also undergoes some change by the action of alkali, as I have 
already explained. In contact with aniline, chlorophyll yields 
up the base y, which is simply replaced by aniline forming 
anilophyll, which may be called a substituted chlorophyll, 
though why in this case there should be such a complete 
metamorphosis is difficult to understand h 
In the case of the artificial chlorophylls, as they may be 
called, the factors x and y are known. Tschirch’s regene- 
rated chlorophyll is in my opinion a chlorophyll which con- 
1 In the above hypothetical formula phylloxanthin may be put in the place 
of phyllocyanin. 
