* 
1 82 Schunck and Brebner . — On the Action of Aniline 
corpuscles — which have the power of combining with oxygen 
to form peroxide-like substances. There are certain sub- 
stances which are known to possess the property of bringing 
the atmospheric oxygen into a more active condition before 
making use of it to complete their own oxidation. Schoen- 
bein showed this to be the case with ether, valerianic aldehyde, 
fatty and ethereal oils. Speaking of oil of turpentine, he says 1 , 
‘ Wie ich zu seiner Zeit gezeigt habe, ist dieser bewegliche 
Sauerstoff nicht an Wasser, sondern an das Terpentinol ge- 
bunden.’ Following the same line of investigation as Schoen- 
bein and Brodie, Kingzett 2 showed that, by the action of air, 
the terpene of oil of turpentine is partly converted into a body 
having the properties of a peroxide which is able to act on 
starch iodide test-paper, and which we also found to affect 
Wurster’s tetra-paper. It is the possible presence of such per- 
oxide-like bodies in the living cell, whether formed from 
terpenes or not, compounds ready to part with their loosely 
combined oxygen, to which the reaction with aniline and the 
formation of anilophyll may be due. 
Kingzett states that, when treated with water, his peroxi- 
dised terpene yields hydrogen peroxide along with various 
acids, but it is hardly necessary to suppose that this second 
stage of the process is passed through within the cell. We do 
not see why there should not be such bodies in the protoplasm, 
but if they are to subserve respiration they would again part 
with their oxygen, before themselves undergoing further oxi- 
dation, and thus be regenerated. Dr. Armstrong has recently 
shown 3 that, by exposing oil of turpentine together with moist 
oxygen to sunlight, a crystalline substance is formed which he 
calls £ sobrerol ’ ; it is an oxidation-product of a terpene be- 
longing, its discoverer thinks, to the group of the alcohols. 
Through the courtesy of Dr. Armstrong we obtained a speci- 
men of his sobrerol, which, in aqueous solution, we found did 
not affect Wurster’s reagent. Now here we have a well- 
1 Jouin. f. prak. Chemie, 105, 198. 
2 Journal of the Chemical Society, new series, vol. xiii. p. 210. 
3 lb. vol. lix. p. 315. 
