458 
PHARMACEUTICAL MEETING, 
been precipitated from a decoction of the nut by solution of basic acetate of lead,, 
and excess of lead removed from the filtered liquid by sulphide of hydrogen, the 
clear supernatant fluid was evaporated to dryness over a bath, the residue di¬ 
gested in hot alcohol, and the latter evaporated to a small bulk. This on cool¬ 
ing solidified to a pasty mass of crystals, which were examined and found to 
have all the characters of Theine. They were identical in crystalline form with 
some Theine prepared from tea, both when seen under the microscope with and 
without polarized light, and in their general silky character when viewed by 
the naked eye ; they yielded the beautiful red colouring-matter known as 
caffeo-murexid when treated with nascent oxygen, and gave gaseous methylamine 
when treated with caustic potash. These reactions and the effect of the nuts on 
Dr. Daniel], together with the well-known peculiar curved or fan-like character 
of the crystalline masses as usually formed, and their long, acicular form when 
deposited from a highly dilute and perfectly pure alcoholic solution, as in pre¬ 
paring a specimen for the microscope, will probably be considered sufficient to 
establish the identity of the crystals with Theine. I shall, however, subject 
the substance to ultimate analysis so soon as the possession of more nuts enables 
me to prepare a sufficient amount. A quantitative determination showed that 
the proportion of Theine present in dried Kola-nut is 2 per cent. Coffee con¬ 
tains from ’5 to 2-0, and tea from *5 to 3-5 parts in 100. 
The dried nuts w r ere next examined for any basic, neutral, or acid principle to 
which the properties other than those of causing sleeplessness might be due, but no 
such principle was found. This result might have been expected, from the state¬ 
ment that the fresh nuts lose so much of their properties in drying as to greatly 
diminish in value. Moreover the fresh nuts, Dr. Darnell tells me, have a bitter 
taste, while the dried fragments I examined had no trace of bitterness. Appa¬ 
rently therefore it is to the bitter principle that a portion of the activity of the 
nut must be ascribed. I shall endeavour to throw more light on this point 
when I succeed in obtaining specimens that have been preserved in a moist con¬ 
dition. 
The presence of Theine, then, at once points to the analogy of Kola-nut, or at 
least of dried Kola-nut, with coffee, tea, and two other similar but less common 
substances—Paraguay Tea and Guarana. Infusions of one or other of these 
vegetable products are used as beverages probably by three-fourths of the human 
race, and each contains the same active principle—Theine. To these must nov r 
be added the Kola-nut. Thus does chemistry reveal the true reason why the 
unerring instinct of man, even in his savage state, has led him to select from the 
many thousands of plants presented to him in nature, just four or five with 
which to concoct a beverage that would seem to be a necessary rather than a 
luxury of life. And what makes the matter more remarkable is that these plants 
are not botanically allied. What Theine really does do for the system is not yet very 
well made out. Liebig thinks that it may aid in the formation of that substance, a 
normal quantity of which is so necessary, and an abnormal so unpleasant—namely, 
bile. Most chemists agree that it arrests that rapid consumption of tissue and 
consequent feeling of fatigue which we all experience when we w r ork hard with 
mind or body. Whatever may be its exact office, its discovery in Kola must 
greatly enhance its physiological interest, showing, as it does, that the instinctive 
desire for it in one form or other by Europeans, Americans, and Asiatics, is 
shared by the natives of Africa. 
The other constituents of dried Kola-nut also indicate that it has the character 
of coffee, though differing from that article of diet in some important respects. 
Thus, on examining some finely-powdered coffee under the microscope, but few 
or no granules of starch are to be seen ; while the powder of Kola is, apparently, 
one-half starch, the granules forming the prominent object enclosed by the 
brownish-yellow coloured cell-walls of the tissue. A rough quantitative deter- 
