ON AMORPHOUS QUININE. 
183 
cannot be a doubt but that this uncertainty with respect to 
the relative amount of quinine in commercial quinoidine 
has prevented many physicians from prescribing the latter 
as a remedy, notwithstanding the testimony borne to its 
efficacy. 
Having occasion, some time since, to pass through 
Coblentz, I procured from Messrs. Jobst & Co., of that 
town, a sample of quinoidine, for the purpose of employing 
it for the preparation of quinoleine — a substance discovered 
by Gerhardt to result from the transformation of quinine, 
and to which much scientific interest attaches, in conse- 
quence of the recent discovery of Professor A. W. Hof- 
mann, that quinoleine is identical with leucol, a body which 
is one of the components of the essential oil of tar, prepared 
from anthracite coal. It then occurred to me, that if the 
sample of quinoidine which I had procured, contained qui- 
nine, it must yield a corresponding amount of quinoleine, 
and that, consequently, a very simple method of testing 
quinoidine for the amount of quinine it may contain, might 
be based upon this property of quinine to be transformed 
into quinoleine. 
On subjecting the sample I had obtained (which amounted 
to several ounces) to distillation with strong potass ley, I 
confess I was surprised at the large amount of quinoleine 
produced, which proved the presence of a far larger propor- 
tion of quinine than could have been anticipated. This un- 
expected result induced me to subject quinoidine to a 
stricter examination ; and in order to avoid being misled by 
accidental circumstances, I procured, beside the Coblentz 
sample, specimens from Messrs. Hess, Leissler, and Fiedler, 
of Mayence, and from Messrs. Mettenheimer and Simon, 
at Frankfort, and also from a druggist at Hamburgh. 
These various samples of quinoidine I received partly in 
irregularly shaped masses, and partly as square cakes of a 
darker or lighter brown colour, which, by the warmth of 
the hand, became soft and flexible, but were readily pul- 
