Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  1 
Mar.,  1881.  J 
Australian  Alstonia  Bark, 
113 
CONSTITUENTS  of  the  AUSTRALIAN  ALSTONIA  BARK. 
By  O.  Hesse. 
Reprint  from  Liebig's  "Ann.  der  Chem.,"  Band.  205,  pp.  360  to  371.  Communicated  by  the  author.  Trans- 
lated and  abridged  by  Fred.  B.  Power. 
The  author  reported  in  1865  on  an  Australian  bark  (^^Ann.  der 
Chem.,"  4  Suppl.  Bd.,  pp.  40  to  50)  which  since  then  has  proved  itself 
to  be  the  bark  of  Alstonia  constricta.  The  same  bark  was  examined 
in  1863  by  Palm,  and  a  bitter  principle,  alstonin,  obtained  therefrom 
by  precipitating  the  aqueous  decoction  of  the  divided  bark  with  tannic 
acid,  and  then  treating  the  precipitate,  which  was  a  compound  of  the 
bitter  principle  with  tannic  acid,  in  the  proper  manner.  According  to 
Palm,  this  bitter  principle  is  a  resin  free  from  nitrogen,  and  therefore 
no  alkaloid. 
The  course  which  was  previously  followed  by  the  author  for  obtain- 
ing one  of  the  alkaloids  of  alstonia  bark,  the  chlorogenina,  led  to  the 
supposition  that  this  alstonin,  in  spite  of  the  maintained  absence  of 
nitrogen,  consists  principally  of  chlorogenina  ;  and,  indeed,  a  control 
experiment,  which  was  made  with  a  small  specimen  of  an  authentic 
bark  obtained  from  Prof.  Fliickiger,  has  confirmed  this  supposition. 
In  view  of  this  fact,  the  author  has  no  iiesitation  in  calling  the  alka- 
loid in  question  alstonina,  as  the  latter  designation  is  older  than  the 
former,  although  the  name  "alstonin'^  has  in  course  of  time  repeatedly 
been  given  to  other  substances. 
Thus,  Baron  von  Miiller,  in  Melbourne,  to  whom  the  previous 
examination  of  the  Australian  bark  by  the  author  was  evidently 
unknown,  in  his  work  on  "The  Organic  Constituents  of  Plants,'^ 
p.  239,  abandons  the  designation  of  alstonin  for  Palm's  substance,  and 
transfers  it  to  a  body  which  Avas  obtained  by  himself  and  L.  Rummel 
(see  "Am.  Jour.  Phar.,"  1879,  p.  406).  Oberlin  and  Schlagdenhauffen 
afterwards  gave  the  name  alstonin  to  a  crystalUzable  alkaloid,  extracted 
from  the  bark  by  means  of  ether  (see  "Am.  Jour.  Phar.,''  1879,  p. 
407,  408).  The  author  had  been  taught  by  an  experiment,  before 
knowing  of  the  communication  of  Oberlin  and  Schlagdenhauffen,  that 
ether  extracts  a  basic  substance  from  the  bark,  which  agrees  essen- 
tially with  his  porphyrina.  A  later  attempt  to  separate  this  mass  by 
means  of  ether  into  a  crystal lizable  and  amorphous  portion  had  a 
negative  result,  which  induced  the  author  to  subject  the  bark  to  a  new 
examination,  the  results  of  which  are  communicated  in  the  following. 
8 
