146 
Acetone  and  Acetone-Chloroform. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharni. 
March,  1896. 
Wohler — Redigirt  von  Dr.  Hermann  Kolbe,  Braunschweig,"  1842^ 
Vol.  II,  p.  1018,  is  the  following  (translated)  statement : 
According  to  Justus  Liebig  and  Pelouze,  the  best  thing  to  use  for 
the  preparation  of  acetone  is  concentrated  acetic  acid,  which  in  the 
state  of  vapor  is  conducted  through  a  heated  tube  of  glass,  porce- 
lain or  iron,  which,  for  the  sake  of  increasing  surface,  is  filled  with 
pieces  of  charcoal,  and  the  products  of  decomposition  are  condensed 
in  the  usual  way.  The  tube  should  be  heated  only  to  incipient 
redness  ;  at  a  higher  temperature,  only  empyreumatic  oils,  com- 
bustible gases  and  charcoal  are  obtained  as  the  products  of  the  de- 
composition. 
Besides  the  citations  given,  the  literature  on  the  preparation,  prop- 
erties and  reactions  of  acetone  is  very  copious  and  definite  up  to 
about  1853.  After  this  date  the  papers  published  are  comparatively 
few,  leading  to  the  inference  that  the  substance  had  reached  a  defi- 
nite position  and  gone  into  general  use. 
In  a  paper  by  Prof.  Samuel  P.  Sadtler,  Ph.D.,  "  On  Recent  Im- 
provements in  the  Methods  for  the  Manufacture  of  Chloroform," 
published  in  The  American  Journal  of  Pharmacy  for  July,  1889, 
p.  321,  the  following  statements  are  made  : 
"  The  old  process  of  manufacture  by  the  action  of  bleaching 
powder  upon  alcohol  has  given  way  to  what  is  now  termed  the 
'  acetone  '  process.  This  is  not,  however,  a  new  discovery.  Liebig, 
in  1832,  in  following  up  his  first  account  of  the  properties  of  the 
newly  discovered  '  chloride  of  carbon '  (chloroform)  mentions  that 
it  can  be  gotten  in  very  large  quantities  by  the  action  of  bleaching 
powder  upon  1  pyroacetic  spirit '  (acetone)  as  well  as  from  alcohoL 
That  alcohol  has,  all  this  time,  been  preferred  to  acetone  as  a  mate- 
rial from  which  to  prepare  chloroform  is  due  mainly  to  the  fact  that 
only  in  recent  years  has  acetone  been  prepared  pure  in  quantity,  but 
also  to  the  erroneous  statement  of  Siemerling,  quoted  in  the  works 
of  reference,  like  Watts'  Dictionary  of  Chemistry,  that  only  33  per 
cent,  of  chloroform  could  be  gotten  from  acetone  by  the  action 
of  bleaching  powder."  .  .  "  The  manufacture  of  a  purer 
grade  of  acetone  than  that  then  in  use  for  solvent  purposes  having 
been  begun  in  Germany  in  188 1,  on  the  part  of  the  '  Verein  fur 
Chemische  Industrie,'  Liebig's  old  suggestion  for  the  manufacture 
of  chloroform  from  acetone  was  taken  up  by  the  i  Verein  Chemischer 
Fabriken,'  Mannheim,  Germany,  in  the  beginning  of  1882,  and  a 
