SOLANINE. 
§§ 475 , 476 -] 
405 
the taste is somewhat bitter and pungent. Solanine is soluble in 8000 parts of 
boiling water, 4000 parts of ether, 500 parts of cold, and 125 of boiling alcohol. It 
dissolves well in hot amyl alcohol, but is scarcely soluble in benzene. An aqueous 
solution froths on shaking, but not to the degree of a saponine solution. 
The amyl alcohol solution has the property of gelatinising when cold. It does 
this if even so little as 1 part of solanine is dissolved in 2000 of hot amyl alcohol. 
The jelly is so firm that the vessel may be inverted without any loss. This peculiar 
property is one of the most important tests for the presence of solanine. The hot 
ethylic alcohol solution will, on cooling, also gelatinise, but a stronger solution is 
required. From very dilute alcoholic solutions (and especially with slow cooling) 
solanine may be obtained in crystals. In dilute mineral acids solanine dissolves 
freely, and forms salts, which for the most part have an acid reaction and are soluble 
in alcohol and in water, but with difficulty in ether. The compounds with the acids 
are not very stable, and several of them are broken up on warming the solution, 
solanine separating out from the aqueous solutions of the solanine salts. The 
glucoside may be precipitated by the fixed and volatile alkalies, and by the alkaline 
earths. Solanine will stand boiling with strongly alkaline solutions without decom¬ 
position ; but dilute acids, on warming, hydrolyse. By heating solanine in alcoholic 
solution with ethyl iodide in closed tubes, and then treating the liquid with ammonia, 
ethyl solanine in well-formed crystals can be obtained. Solanine is precipitated by 
phosphomolybdic acid, but by very few other substances. It gives, for example, no 
precipitate with the following reagents :•—Platinic chloride, gold chloride, mercuric 
chloride, potassic bichromate, and picric acid. Tannin precipitates it only after a 
time. Sodic phosphate gives a crystalline precipitate of solanine phosphate, if 
added to a solution of solanine sulphate. Both solanine and solanidine give with 
nitric acid at first a colourless solution, which, on gentle warming, passes into blue, 
then into light red, and lastly becomes weakly yellow. Solanine, dissolved in strong 
sulphuric acid, to which a little Frohde’s reagent is added, at first colours the fluid 
light brown ; after standing some time the edges of the drop become reddish-yellow, 
and finally the whole a beautiful cherry-red, which gradually passes into dark violet 
when violet-coloured flocks separate. 
§ 475. Solanidine. —Solanidine has stronger basic properties than solanine. Its 
formula is C 39 H 61 N0 2 . It is obtained from an alcoholic solution in amorphous masses 
interspersed with needles; m.p. 191°. It dissolves readily in hot alcohol, with 
difficulty in ether. With hydrochloric acid it forms a hydrochloride—3(C 39 H 61 N0 2 HC1) 
HCl-f H 2 0 or 1£H 2 0. This hydrochloride is a slightly yellow powder, only sparingly 
soluble in water, and carbonising without melting when heated to 287°. Solanidine 
also forms a sulphate, 3(C 39 H 61 N0 2 H 2 S0 4 )H 2 S0 4 +8H 2 0 ; this salt is in the form of 
scaly plates, melting at 247° ; it dissolves readily in water. 
The sugar obtained from the hydrolysis of solanidine is a yellow amorphous mass 
dissolving readily in water and wood spirit, and has a specific rotatory power of 
[a] D = 4-28-623. With phenylhydrazine hydrochloride and sodium acetate in aqueous 
solution it forms a glucosazone, melting at 199°. It is probably a mixture of sugars. 
Solaneine is the name that has been given to an amorphous substance accom¬ 
panying solanine ; according to Hilger and Merkens ( Ber ., 1903) it is solanine 
minus 5H 2 0. 
§ 476. Poisoning from Solanine. —Poisoning from solanine has been, in all 
recorded cases, induced, not by the pure alkaloid (which is scarcely met with out of 
the laboratory of the scientific chemist), but by the berries of the different species of 
Solarium, and has for the most part been confined to children. The symptoms in 
about twenty cases, 1 which may be found detailed in medical literature, have varied 
so greatly that the most opposite phenomena have been witnessed as effects of 
1 See “ Death of Three Children by S. nigrum ,” Hirtz, Gaz. Med. de Stras¬ 
bourg, 1842 ; Maury, Gaz. des Hop., 1864 ; J. B. Montane, Chim. Med., 1862 ; Magne, 
Gaz. des Hop., 1869 ; Manners, Edin. Med. Journ., 1867. Cases of poisoning by 
bitter-sweet berries are recorded in Lancet, 1856; C. Bourdin, Gaz. des Hop., 1864; 
Bourneville, the berries of S. tuberosum, Brit. Med. Journ., 1895. 
