610 
Alkaloids  from  Nux  Vomica. 
Am  Jour.  Pbarm. 
Dec,  1881, 
that  ether  takes  up  thymol  eagerly,  even  with  a  dilution  of  1  in  100,- 
000,  especially  on  the  addition  of  several  droj^s  of  hydrochloric  acid. 
—  Chem.  Industrie,  Sept.,  1881,  p.  304. 
Atropia  and  Analogous  Alkaloids, — Regnauld  and  Valmont  state 
the  following  conclusions  as  to  the  composition  of  atropin : 
The  atropin  of  medicine  is  a  mixture,  in  variable  proportions,  of 
two  isomeric  crystalline  alkaloids,  possessing  the  same  therapeutic  pro- 
perties. One  of  these  is  atropine  a  (atropine  of  Ladenburg) ;  the 
other  is  atropine  ^9,  or  preferably  atropidine  (hyoscyamine  of  Laden- 
barg).  Atropidine  exists  in  such  abundance  in  belladonna  that  it 
forms  about  two-thirds  of  the  crystalline  atropine  of  the  codex.  It  is 
the  crystalline  alkaloid  of  all  the  mydriatic  Solanacese  and  of  Duboi- 
sia,  and  has  improperly  been  named  daturine  and  duboisine. — Eng. 
Chem.  News,  Oct.  28th,  1881. 
THE  ALKALOIDS  OF  TsUX  VOMICA. 
By  W.  a.  Shexstone. 
In  a  paper  read  before  the  Pharmaceutical  Society  ('^Pharm.  Jour.," 
December  8th,  1877)  I  mentioned  some  substances  which  apparently 
had  been  produced  by  the  action  of  water  containing  a  very  small  pro- 
portion of  acetic  acid  on  brucine  heated  with  it,  in  the  course  of  attemj3ts 
to  free  the  brucine  from  strychnine  by  crystallizing  from  hot  aqueous 
solutions  containing  small  quantities  of  its  acetate. 
On  endeavoring  to  obtain  the  same  products  on  a  large  scale  from 
another  specimen  of  commercial  brucine  I  was  only  ])artly  successful, 
and  thinking  my  former  results  might  have  been  due  to  some  differ- 
ence in  the  alkaloid,  as  for  instance  the  presence  of  impurities,  I 
decided  that  it  would  be  well  to  prepare  a  specimen  of  brucine  by  a 
process  so  devised  that  heating  should  be  avoided  as  far  as  possible, 
and  heating  with  alkalies  or  acids  altogether.  It  then  seemed  to  me 
that,  as  the  researches  on  which  our  present  knowledge  of  the  alka- 
loids of  nux  vomica  is  based  were  made  with  material  which  had  been 
prepared  by  the  old  processes,  and,  as  it  is  quite  certain  that  these  alka- 
loids are  much  affected  by  saponifying  agents,  it  would  be  well  to  take 
the  opportunity  of  re-examining  at  least  brucine,  which  is  most  readily 
attacked.  I  also  thought  that  by  making  my  examination  as  exhaust- 
ive as  possible  I  might  hope  to  do  something  more  towards  finally  set- 
