THE  AMERICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY. 
AUGUST,  1878. 
NOTE  ON  THE  RESIN  OF  PODOPHYLLUM. 
By  Frederick  B.  Power. 
Since  the  publication  of  my  paper  on  the  resin  of  podophyllum,1  at 
which  time  attention  was  called  to  the  possible  pre-existence  of  proto- 
catechuic  acid  in  the  rhizome,  an  opportunity  has  been  extended  for 
pursuing  the  investigation  in  this  direction.  The  material  worked  upon, 
prepared  in  the  laboratory  of  Dr.  E.  R.  Squibb,  was  very  kindly  sent 
by  him  to  Prof.  Fluckiger,  who  was  so  kind  as  to  place  it  at  my  dis- 
posal. It  consisted  of  the  washed  and  dried  precipitate  produced  by 
lead  acetate  in  the  mother  liquors  obtained  in  the  preparation  of  podo- 
phyllum resin  from  400  pounds  of  powdered  rhizome,  and  this,  as 
stated  by  Dr.  Squibb,  was  a  portion  of  a  lot  of  1,000  pounds  of  rhizome, 
all  practically  the  same  in  quality.  For  complete  precipitation,  twelve 
pounds,  avoirdupois,  of  crystallized  lead  acetate  were  employed,  the 
washed  and  dried  precipitate  therefrom  weighing  about  ten  ounces. 
This  lead  precipitate,  consisting  of  the  lead  compound  of  the  acid 
resin  associated  with  a  small  amount  of  lead  chloride,  was  finely 
powdered,  suspended  in  water,  and  saturated  with  hydrosulphuric  acid, 
the  liquid  filtered  to  separate  the  lead  sulphide,  which  latter  was  again 
suspended  in  water  and  treated  as  before,  in  order  to  insure  the  com- 
plete removal  of  the  lead.  The  lead  sulphide  was  then  dried,  and 
exhausted  with  boiling  alcohol.  The  amount  of  acid  resin  as  obtained 
by  the  evaporation  of  the  aqueous  liquid  upon  the  water-bath  was  60 
grams.  By  the  evaporation  of  the  alcoholic  solution,  obtained  by  the 
subsequent  exhaustion  of  the  lead  sulphide,  40  grams  of  resin  were 
obtained  j  the  resin  being  so  much  more  sparingly  soluble  in  water  than 
in  alcohol  that  the  extraction  of  the  entire  amount  produced  by  the 
decomposition  of  the  lead  compound  would  have  required  repeated 
l"  Proc.  Am.  Pharm.  Assoc.,"  1877.  pp.  420-433. 
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