Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
May,  1894. 
Contributions  to  Pharmacy, 
247 
removes  the  greater  portion  of  the  sugar,  while  the  decanted  liquid, 
upon  the  addition  of  alcohol,  separates  the  barium  compound  of 
sinistrin,  which  is  washed  with  absolute  alcohol,  powdered  and  dried 
over  sulphuric  acid  in  vacuo ;  by  repeated  solution  in  water  and 
precipitation  with  alcohol  this  compound  is  gotten  so  that  it  will  no 
longer  reduce  Fehling's  solution ;  it  is  then  dissolved  in  three  times 
its  weight  of  water,  the  solution  warmed,  the  barium  precipi- 
tated by  carbon  dioxide,  the  filtrate  concentrated  on  a  water-bath 
and  alcohol  added.  The  sinistrin  which  is  precipitated  is  dried  and 
purified  like  its  barium  compound.  It  is  possible  to  obtain  a  pro- 
duct by  this  process  which  yields  upon  ignition  only  one  and  one- 
half  per  cent.  ash.  Unable  in  itself  to  reduce  alkaline  copper  tar- 
trate solutions,  solutions  of  sinistrin,  through  the  influence  of  rapidly 
appearing  bacteria,  soon  possess  this  property.  Heated  with  nitric 
acid  of  sp.  gr.  112  it  yields  oxalic  acid,  but  no  mucic,  saccharic  or 
tartaric  acid ;  yeast  only  slowly  induces  fermentation. 
Riche  and  Remont  have  also  described  sinistrin  under  the  name 
of  scillin,  and  obtained  it  by  the  expression  cf  fresh  squill,  which 
they  claim  contains  more  scillin  (sinistrin)  than  the  dried  bulbs; 
they  obtained  from  fresh  squill  (containing  about  75  per  cent,  water) 
almost  30  per  cent.,  calculated  to  perfectly  dry  squill.  The  expressed 
juice  was  neutralized  with  chalk  and  evaporated  under  reduced 
pressure,  to  syrupy  consistence  ;  by  the  addition  of  an  equal  volume 
of  alcohol  they  separated  mucilage,  and  in  the  clear  decanted  liquid 
the  addition  of  six  volumes  of  alcohol  precipitated  the  sinistrin, 
which  was  freed  from  sugar  and  inorganic  salts  by  repeatedly 
dissolving  in  water  and  precipitating  with  alcohol ;  so  purified,  it  did 
not  yield  mucic  acid  by  boiling  with  nitric  acid. 
Franz  Kurtz,  in  a  recent  inaugural  dissertation,  presented  to  the 
university  at  Erlangen,  makes  an  investigation  of  the  bitter  principle 
scillain  and  the  carbohydrates.  In  a  study  of  von  Jarmerstedt's 
method  of  extracting  the  bitter  principle  from  both  fresh  and  dried 
bulbs,  mention  is  made  of  the  relatively  small  yield;  the  difficulty  of 
extracting  the  tannin  compound  of  the  bitter  principle  with  alcohol 
because  this  is  so  tenacious  that  it  cannot  be  powdered  ;  and  the  pro- 
longed exposure  of  the  bitter  principle  to  numerous  reagents.  To 
determine  the  most  suitable  solvent  for  the  bitter  principle,  extractions 
were  made  with  distilled  water,  hot  90  per  cent,  alcohol  and  ether ; 
alcohol  proved  the  best  solvent,  also  extracting  but  traces  of 
