CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY OF BUXINE. 
193 
and properties of this body, as occurring in the bark of the tree in question, 
have been investigated by Maclagan, Tilley and Yon Planta,* who assigned 
to it the formula 0 19 H 21 N0 3 . I have prepared bibirine in a state of purity 
by exhausting with ether the crude alkaloid. The latter I purchased of 
Mr. E. Merck, Darmstadt, who also sent me specimens of the bark, which I 
examined and found to be undoubtedly that of Nectandra Bodiei. The 
purified bibirine, as left after the evaporation of the ether, was dissolved in 
acetic acid, precipitated by potash, and repeatedly submitted to this treat¬ 
ment. A white amorphous powder was finally obtained, f the neutral acetate 
of which, shows the following behaviour. The concentrated watery solution 
is not precipitated by tartarated antimony, but affords abundant wdiite pre¬ 
cipitates on the addition of phosphate of sodium, nitrate, iodide, or iodo- 
hydrargyrate of potassium, perchloride of mercury, platino-cyanide of potas¬ 
sium, or of nitric or iodic acids. The acetate of bibirine, further yields yellow 
precipitates when mixed with solutions of red or yellow prussiate of potassium, 
chromate or bichromate of potassium, or bichloride of platinum. All these 
precipitates are amorphous, the platino-cyanic compound alone, becoming 
crystalline after some hours. The pure bibirine gave upon elementary 
analysis (performed in my laboratory by Dr. Kraushaar) the following per¬ 
centage :—Carbon 7l'61, Hydrogen 6’73. The platinum compound left behind 
1922 platinum. 
There is another alkaloid, pelosine, the properties ascribed to which seemed 
to me to accord with those of bibirine ; and having had occasion to investi¬ 
gate and analyse some of the drugs in which it resides, I have instituted a 
comparison between it and bibirine, the result of which I will now detail. 
Pelosine was discovered in 1838 by Wiggers, and found by Bodeker (1849) 
to answer to the formula C ]s H 21 N O a . It was first extracted from the roots 
and stems known in pharmacy as Pareira Brava, and commonly attributed 
to Cissampelos Pareira L., a climbing shrub of the Order Menispermacece, 
distributed throughout the tropical regions of the whole world. It has 
however been pointed out by my friend Daniel Hanbury in a note in the 
Pharmacopoeia of India, that this derivation of Pareira Brava is entirely 
erroneous, and a comparison of authentic stems and roots of Cissampelos 
Pareira L. collected in Jamaica and presented to me by Mr. Hanbury, with 
the ordinary Pareira Brava of commerce, enables me to confirm his observa¬ 
tion. 
I begin then by stating that the materials which have afforded me pelosine 
are the stems and roots of Cissampelos Pareira L., and those of Botryopsis 
platyphylla Miers, the latter collected by Dr. Peckolt at Cantagallo in Brazil. 
The latter constitute an excellent sort of Pareira Brava used in Brazil, but not 
the ordinary Pareira Brava of the English shops, the origin of which drug 
is in fact, still uncertain. From the stems and roots both of the Cissampelos 
and Botryopsis , I have obtained pelosine in the following manner. 
The wood was cut in pieces, and ground without employing considerable 
force. By this means, the softer tissue of the bark and the medullary rays 
were almost completely separated from the more resistant tough woody pros- 
enchyme, the latter being very poor in alkaloid. The coarsely powdered 
parenchymatous part thus obtained, is then exhausted with water, to which 
* Gmelin’s Chemistry xvii. 170. 
f In small quantity,—probably not one quarter of the crude alkaloid. But the so-called 
Sulphate of Bibirine, of Macfarlaue of Edinburgh, of which Mr. Hanbury provided me a 
sample, proved in fact to yield only a very trifling amount of pure bibirine, the sulphate 
containing so large a proportion of dark brown coloured matter that it caused the purifica¬ 
tion of bibirine to be extremely difficult, at least by the method above mentioned, which, 
however, I believe to be the best. 
