Am.  Tour.  Phann.  \ 
Sept.,  1918.  J 
Chemistry  of  Gossypol. 
651 
In  a  personal  communication  to  the  writer,  A.  G.  Perkin  states 
that  he  had  a  very  large  quantity  of  it  in  paste  form  and  that  Pro- 
fessors Hummel  and  Knecht  carried  on  experiments  in  the  hope  of 
converting  it  into  a  dye  of  commercial  importance  but  without  suc- 
cess. Perkin  intended  to  work  with  gossypol  but  refrained  when 
Marchlewski  stated  that  he  wished  to  reserve  the  subject. 
Occurrence. — Gossypol  appears  to  be  a  constituent  of  the  cotton 
plant  only.  It  occurs  in  peculiar  glands  called  "  gland  dots,"  "  se- 
cretion cavities,"  or  "  resin  glands,"  which  are  present  in  all  parts 
of  the  plant  except  the  woody  tissue.  These  are  100  to  400 /x  in 
diameter  and  are  readily  visible  to  the  eye.  They  appear  to  be  of 
lysigenous  origin,  i.  e.,  formed  by  disintegration  of  adjacent  cells.7 
The  author  obtained  a  crude  material  from  an  ether  extract  of  the 
bark  which  evidently  was  chiefly  gossypol.  It  was  not  obtained 
crystalline.  The  glands  in  the  root-bark,  leaf,  petals  and  boll  as 
well  as  those  of  the  seed  give  with  concentrated  sulphuric  acid  a 
characteristic  red  color,  from  which  fact  it  is  inferred  that  gossypol 
exists  in  all  these.  An  excellent  description  of  the  cross  section 
of  the  seed,  showing  situation  of  the  glands,  is  given  in  Winton's 
"  Microscopy  of  Technical  Products,"  p.  365. 
A.  G.  Perkin8  states  that  gossypol  "  is  not  identical  with  and 
does  not  appear  to  be  allied  with  the  coloring  matter  of  the  (cot- 
ton) flowers." 
Amount  Present  in  Cottonseed. — Analyses  of  parts  of  the  plant 
other  than  the  seed  have  not  been  made.  By  two  different  methods, 
the  amounts  of  gossypol  present  in  the  undried  kernels,  nearly  free 
from  lint  and  hulls,  has  been  found  to  be  about  0.6  per  cent.  The 
highest  yield  recorded  was  0.63  per  cent. 
Attempts  have  not  been  made  to  study  the  actual  variation  in 
different  varieties  of  the  cotton  plant,  but  since  all  varieties  of  seed 
seem  to  have  approximately  the  same  number  of  glands,  it  would 
appear  that  the  gossypol  content  does  not  vary  to  a  greater  extent 
than  the  oil  or  protein  content.  Assuming  for  convenience  that 
100  Gm.  of  fresh  raw  kernels  contain  0.6  per  cent,  gossypol  and  33.3 
per  cent,  oil,  then  the  ether  extract  of  this  material  would  contain 
about  three  times  0.6  or  1.8  per  cent,  gossypol.    Since  extraction 
7  A  photomicroscopic  study  of  the  formation  of  these  glands  has  been 
made  by  Dr.  A.  Viehoever  and  Mr.  E.  E.  Stanford  of  the  Pharmacognosy 
Laboratory  of  the  Bureau  of  Chemistry.    It  is  not  yet  published. 
87.  Chem.  Soc.}  75,  825  (1899). 
