FORMATION  OF  RACEMIC  FROM  TARTARIC  ACID. 
55 
M«  Bussy  wished  him  to  recall  his  old  labors  with  M,  Ossian 
Henri,  so  as  to  give  value  to  this  product  as  a  substitute  for  sul- 
phate of  quinine,  and,  perhaps,  he  said,  as  preferable  in  some 
cases.  Notwithstanding  this  proof  of  his  affection  for  him,  M. 
Delondre  persisted  in  his  conviction  that  there  was  nothing  either 
new  or  useful  in  the  results  which  he  had  just  obtained,  for  if  the 
peculiar  crystallization  (called  quinidine)  were  to  be  separated,  the 
prices  would  be  exorbitant.  The  surest  and  most  economical  sub- 
stitute for  sulphate  of  quinine  is  cinchonine,  which  is  naturally 
united  to  quinine  in  all  cinchonas,  and  which  is  only  separated  from 
it  by  the  chemical  operations.  Moreover,  its  sulphate  is  worth  5 
francs  for  30  grammes,  whereas  the  price  of  sulphate  of  quinine  is 
from  14  to  15  francs  ;  and  for  more  than  a  century  those  cinchonas 
have  been  preferred  which  contain  chiefly  cinchonine. 
M.  Delondre  has  likewise  given  a  large  sample  of  this  red  cin- 
chona to  MM.  Bussy  and  Guibourt,  because  it  has  been  hitherto 
but  little  known,  and  is  still  very  rare. 
It  is  difficult  to  appreciate  the  value  of  this  cinchona,  for  in  the 
works  on  this  subject,  it  is  confounded  with  the  bark,  improperly 
called  china  nova,  and  which  is  not  a  cinchona  at  all,  as  we  shall 
prove  hereafter. — JV.  Y.  Journal  of  Pharmacy ,  Aug.  1853,  from 
Repertoire  de  Pharmacie,  March,  1853. 
OX  THE  TRANSFORMATION1  OF  TARTARIC  ACID  INTO  RACEMIC 
ACID,  THE  DISCOVERY  OF  INACTIVE  TARTARIC  ACID,  AND  A 
NEW  METHOD  OF  SEPARATING  RACEMIC  ACID  INTO  DEXTRO- 
AND  LiEVO-TARTARIC  ACIDS. 
By  L.  Pasteur. 
In  a  memoir  recently  presented  by  me  to  the  Academy  of  Sci- 
ences*, I  showed  that  all  the  salts  of  cinchonine,  of  quinine,  of 
quinidine  and  of  cinchonidine,  when  submitted  to  the  action  of  heat, 
were  capable  of  being  converted  into  salts  of  quinicine  and  cincho- 
nicine,  two  new  organic  bases,  isomeric  respectively  with  quinine 
and  quinidine,  and  with  cinchonine  and  cinchonidine.  If,  in  the 
study  of  these  isomeric  metamorphoses,  thetartrates  of  these  alkalies 
be  employed,  and  the  action  of  heat  be  carried  far  beyond  the  point 
*  See  Vol.  XXV.  page  534  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
