Am.  Jour.  Pharrn. 
April,  1893. 
Linseed  Cake  and  Meal. 
195 
quite  soluble  in  90  per  cent,  acetic  acid.  The  sesamin  might  be 
obtained  from  the  separated  solvent  in  the  crystalline  state  by  two 
methods,  the  better  of  which  consisted  in  evaporating  over  a  water- 
bath  until  the  solvent  had  been  removed,  saponifying  the  oil  present 
by  means  of  solution  of  potash,  which  had  no  action  on  sesamin, 
and  setting  aside  for  a  few  hours  until  sesamin  has  deposited.  The 
supernatant  fluid  is  then  removed.  The  sesamin  is  repeatedly 
washed  with  hot  water,  and  recrystallized  from  alcohol.  This 
method  of  purification  completely  gets  rid  of  the  impurities.  With 
the  sesamin  extracted  and  purified  by  this  mode  he  performed  six 
combustions :  the  results  showed  that  the  composition  of  sesamin  is 
expressed  by  the  formula  C18H1805.  At  200  C.  100  grains  of  alcohol 
dissolve  0  27  grain  sesamin,  and  100  grains  of  boiling  alcohol 
dissolve  8-07  grains.  The  specific  gravity  of  sesamin  was  formerly 
found  to  be  1-305.  The  ordinary  methods  employed  to  determine 
the  constitution  of  organic  compounds  gave  no  satisfactory  results 
as  regards  sesamin ;  the  evidence  indicated  that  it  did  not  corres- 
pond to  any  known  substance.  It  had  been  shown  to  be  devoid  of 
acid  or  basic  properties  and,  judging  from  its  behavior  with  alcoholic 
potash,  nitric  acid,  etc.,  it  might  come  under  the  term  "  neutral 
resin  "  or  resin  anhydride  as  used  by  Dragendorff  to  describe  oxy- 
genated bodies  (occurring  along  with  resin  acids)  which  were  insol- 
uble in  alkalies.  As  he  had  pointed  out  in  his  previous  paper, 
sesamin  assumed  a  green  and  afterwards  a  bright-red  color  in  contact 
with  nitro-sulphuric  acid.  A  similar  coloration  was  produced  on 
sesame  oil  by  nitro-sulphuric  acid,  as  pointed  out  by  Behrens — a 
reaction  which  no  other  oil  exhibited,  so  that  undoubtedly  the  cause 
of  the  coloration  was  sesamin.  Owing  to  the  minute  proportion  of 
sesamin  present  in  the  oil  (-04  to  -06  per  cent.)  he  had  not  been  able 
to  extract  a  sufficient  quantity  to  make  a  thorough  investigation 
into  its  constitution. 
MANUFACTURE  AND  COMPOSITION  OF  LINSEED  CAKE 
AND  MEAL.1 
A  paper  by  Haselhoff,  published  in  the  journal  named,  states  that 
flax  is  chiefly  grown  in  Germany  for  the  flax  ;  for  seed  it  is  almost 
only  grown  in  Mecklenburg  and  Konigsberg,  and  the  seed  is  not  of 
1  {Landw.  Versuchs-Stat.,  41,  55-93.)  Jour.  Chem.  Soc,  1893,  Abstr.  II,  38. 
