AmJ;nuar^yfl9oorm•}        Constitution  of  the  Alkaloids.  19 
Upon  merely  reducing  this  allyl-pyridine  eight  hydrogen  atoms 
were  added,  and  the  result  was  coniine.'  It  was  an  ingenious  idea, 
very  simple,  but  very  ably  executed. 
The  next  alkaloid  to  be  made  synthetically  was  trigonelline,  the 
alkaloid  of  Trigonella  fcenum-gr cecum,  commonly  called  fcenugreek 
seed.  It  was  first  obtained  by  Jahns,  in  1885,  and  in  the  succeed- 
ing year  he  determined  its  constitution,  finding  that  it  was  the 
methyl  betaine  of  nicotinic  acid  ;  a  betaine  being  an  inner  anhydride 
of  an  acid  and  an  alkaline  group. 
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This  he  was  enabled  to  do  as  the  result  of  the  studies  Hantzsch 
was  just  at  the  time  making  of  the  betaines  of  pyridine  carbonic 
acids,  and  in  particular  made  them  of  both  nicotinic  and  picolinic 
acids.  Both  were  of  course  isomeric  with  one  another,  and  both 
were  isomeric  with  trigonelline,  but  Hantzsch  failed  to  discover  by 
a  comparison  that  the  latter  was  identical  with  one  of  them.  Jahns 
was  just  working  on  trigonelline,  and  on  comparing  it  with  both  of 
them,  found  that  it  was  identical  with  that  of  nicotinic  acid,  which 
is  ^-pyridine  carbonic  acid. 
The  great  step  in  the  advancement  of  alkaloidal  constitution  was 
the  complete  and  thorough  study  made  in  the  eighties  of  pyridine 
and  quinoline  and  their  derivatives.  By  obtaining  nearly  all  the 
derivatives  of  these  two  substances  investigators  were  able,  in  study- 
ing and  breaking  down  alkaloids  by  oxidation  or  reduction,  to  gain 
a  definite  foothold,  so  to  speak,  and  grasp  something  that  they 
knew  the  composition  of,  and  would  aid  them  in  their  further  work 
and  conclusions.  The  great  development  of  synthetic  methods  also 
helped  along  this  work  and  especially  served  to  confirm  work  that 
had  been  more  or  less  problematical  before.  Among  the  opium 
alkaloids,  those  that  were  known  constitutionally  at  about  this  period, 
in  1886,  are  narcotine  and  papaverine,  the  former  being  a  very  com- 
plex pyridine  and  the  latter  a  quinoline  derivative,  the  former 
being  the  combined  work  of  Matthiessen,  Wegscheider  and  Roser 
