Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  \ 
February,  1896.  J 
Composition  of  Mucilages. 
1 1 1 
rious  specimen  of  Nature's  handiwork.  A  professor  in  one  of  our 
pharmacy  colleges  says  that  he  dimly  sees  within  and  through  its 
mysterious  processes  the  key  to  all  our  alkaloid-bearing  plants. 
When  the  door  shall  be  wide  opened  and  all  is  made  plain,  the  influ- 
ence and  value  of  the  discovery  to  science  and  medicine,  he  believes, 
will  be  so  great  that  it  may  be  counted  with  the  "  proin  "  of  Berzelius, 
the  "dawn  of  the  day." 
NOTE  ON  THE  CHEMICAL  COMPOSITION  OF  SOME 
MUCILAGES.1 
By  K  Yoshimura. 
The  mucilage,  or  saccharo-colloids,  hitherto  analysed,  have  been 
found  to  consist,  in  most  cases,  of  saccharo-polyanhydrides  of  either 
glucose,  galactose,  mannose,  or  arabinose.    Only  in  one  case  was 
the  mucilage  shown  to  consist  of  a  mucin  (Ishii,  Vol.  II,  No.  2  of 
this  Bulletin). 
Although  such  compounds  are  widely  distributed  in  the  vegetable 
kingdom,  they  have  been  investigated  but  in  a  very  limited  number 
of  cases.  As  it  is  of  physiological  interest  to  know  the  composition 
of  mucilages  in  as  many  plants  as  possible,  I  have  examined  those  of 
the  following  species : 
(1)  Sterculia  platanifolia  (young  shoots).2 
(2)  Colocasia  antiqurum  (tuberous  roots).3 
(3)  Opuntia  (fleshy  stem). 
(4)  Vitis  pentaphylla  (stems  and  leaves). 
(5)  Oenothera  Jaquinii  (stems  and  leaves). 
(6)  Kadzura  Japonica  (young  leaves  and  stems). 
The  concentrated  slimy  extracts  were  precipitated  with  strong 
alcohol,  and  the  precipitates,  after  having  been  washed  with  alcohol, 
were  boiled  with  sulphuric  acid  of  2-4  per  cent,  for  2-5  hours,  the 
liquid  neutralized  with  barium  carbonate,  and  the  filtrate  evaporated 
to  a  syrup. 
A  portion  of  this  syrup  was  evaporated  with  nitric  acid  to  observe 
whether  mucic  acid  was  formed. 
1  From  Bulletin  of  Imperial  College  of  Agriculture,  Tokio,  Japan.  Vol.  II, 
No.  4. 
2  The  mucilage  of  Sterculia  platanifolia,  as  well  as  that  of  Kadzura  Japonica \ 
finds  technical  application  in  this  country,  being  used  for  siziug  paper,  etc. 
3  The  tuberous  root  stock  of  Colocasia  antiquorum  serves  as  a  valuable  food 
in  this  country,  and  is  hence  cultivated  to  a  large  extent. 
