10 
ON  SOME  PROPERTIES  OF  BERBERINA. 
NOTE  ON  SOME  PROPERTIES  OF  BERBERINA. 
By  William  Procter,  Jr. 
Having  occasion  recently  for  information  relative  to  the  pro- 
perties of  pure  berberina  in  an  uncombined  state,  a  reference  to 
all  the  authorities  at  my  disposal,  including  nearly  all  the  papers 
published  within  the  last  few  years,  I  noticed  with  some  surprise 
that  these  writers,  in  describing  berberina,  treated  the  substance 
obtained  from  Berberis  vulgaris  by  the  agency  of  neutral  sol- 
vents, and  which,  as  Berberin  is  an  alkaloid,  must  be  a  natural 
salt  of  that  substance. 
Buchner,  the  original  discoverer  of  this  principle,  believed 
it  to  be  a  neutral  substance.  Liebig  (Traite  de  chimie,  tome  ii. 
645,)  says  it  is  alkaline,  but  in  describing  its  preparation  gives 
the  original  process,  and  describes  its  solubility  in  the  form  of 
its  natural  salt,  as  requiring  500  parts  of  cold  water.  Witt- 
stein,  in  his  "Practical  Pharmaceutical  Chemistry,"  (Darby's 
translation),  also  describes  it  in  this  condition  as  obtained  by 
neutral  solvents,  and  gives  the  same  numbers  for  solubility  that 
Liebig  does.  He  also  says  that  this  natural  salt  is  the  hydro- 
chlorate,  a  statement  I  have  not  seen  elsewhere.  I  have  con- 
sulted the  papers  of  Fleitman,  of  Stenhouse  and  of  Perrins,  in 
the  Pharmaceutical  k Journal,  and  those  of  Mahla  and  Merrill 
in  this  Journal,  and  none  of  them  describe  the  properties  of 
pure  berberina. 
The  best  process  for  isolating  berberina  is  that  hinted  at  by 
William  A.  Merrill,  (Amer.  Jour.  Pharm.,  page  503,  1862), 
based  on  the  separation  of  the  sulphuric  acid  from  the  sulphate 
by  either  baryta  or  oxide  of  lead.  Mr.  Merrill  prefers  the  ox- 
ide of  lead,  and  I  agree  with  him,  as,  from  its  insolubility  in 
water,  its  excess  does  not  interfere  with  the  purity  of  the  re- 
sulting alkaloid  in  solution. 
Take  the  root  of  Hydrastis  canadensis,  or  of  Berberis  vulgaris, 
preferably  the  former,  in  coarse  powder,  exhaust  it  by  repeated 
decoction  or  digestion  in  boiling  water,  and  evaporate  the  fil- 
tered liquids  to  a  soft  extract.  Treat  this  with  stronger  alco- 
hol by  digestion  in  a  water-bath  still  at  several  times  until  it  is 
exhausted  (or  until  a  quart  of  alcohol  has  been  employed  for 
