Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
June,  1894. 
Contributions  to  Pharmacy. 
30S 
Schmidt  announced  that  this  same  alkaloid  in  some  quantity  had 
been  placed  at  his  disposal  by  E.  Merck,  and  that  it  had  also  been 
prepared  by  himself  from  the  rhizome.  The  investigations  carried 
on  by  E.  Schmidt  and  some  of  his  pupils  during  the  past  ten  years 
enable  him  to  say  that,  while  hydrastine  and  berberine  are  the  chief 
alkaloids  present,  they  do  not  by  any  means  represent  the  entire 
alkaloids;  the  quantities  in  which  these  other  alkaloids  are  present 
in  the  rhizome  are  so  small  that  by  successive  workings  of  50  kilos 
only  one  of  these  alkaloids  has  been  prepared  in  larger  quantity ; 
the  alkaloid  so  obtained,  very  probably  identical  with  that  reported 
by  Hale,  Prescott,  Burt  and  Lerchen,  is  called  canadine  in  preference 
to  the  name  xanthopuccine,  because  the  latter  name,  indicating  a 
yellow  color,  is  erroneous,  as  neither  the  alkaloid  nor  its  salts  are 
yellow. 
L.  Deichmann,  working  with  this  alkaloid,  furnished  as  hydro- 
chlorate  by  E.  Merck,  pronounced  it  to  be,  in  all  probability,  dihy- 
dromethylberberine,  C21H21N04.  After  the  conclusion  of  this  investi- 
gation, a  much  larger  quantity  of  canadine  hydrochlorate  was  pre- 
sented by  E.  Merck  to  Prof.  E.  Schmidt,  and  the  investigations  of 
the  latter  are  now  to  be  recorded  as  published  in  Arch,  der  Pharm., 
1894,  136-154. 
The  isolation  of  the  crude  canadine  is  attended  with  but  one  dif- 
ficulty, namely,  its  minute  quantity ;  one  kilo  of  the  rhizome  being 
sufficient  to  prove  that,  besides  hydrastine  and  berberine,  a  third 
alkaloid  is  present.  Crude  hydrastine,  obtained  by  precipitating 
with  ammonia  the  concentrated  decoctions  made  by  extracting  the 
rhizome  with  water  acidulated  with  acetic  acid,  is  used  in  isolating 
the  canadine  ;  after  washing  and  expressing  the  grayish-brown  crude 
hydrastine,  it  is  dissolved  in  dilute  sulphuric  acid,  filtered,  mixed 
with  some  nitric  acid  and  set  aside  for  one  or  two  days ;  the  precipi- 
tate which  is  formed  is  dissolved  in  hot  water  and  the  alkaloid  precipi- 
tated by  adding  ammonia ;  the  precipitate  is  redissolved  in  dilute 
mixed  with  sulphuric  acid  and  nitric  acid.  These  operations  are 
repeated  until  the  precipitate  caused  by  the  nitric  acid  is  perfectly 
crystalline  and  only  shows  a  faint  yellow  tinge ;  from  the  almost  in- 
soluble nitrate  the  alkaloid  is  precipitated,  which  is  then  purified  by 
crystallization,  first  from  boiling  petroleum-ether,  later  from  alcohol 
The  white,  acicular  crystals  so  obtained  melted  at  132-1330  C,  and 
had  all  the  characteristics  of  a  definite  chemical  compound,  but  by 
