280 
Alkaloids  in  Belladonna  Root. 
/Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\       May,  1884. 
alkaloid  from  nux  vomica,  when  mixed  with  25  per  cent,  of  alcohol  it 
was  able  to  do  so  thoroughly  and  completely,  leaving  behind  the  whole 
of  the  mucilaginous  constituents  of  the  seeds  and  the  other  non-alka- 
loidal  constituents,  many  of  which  would  be  extracted  if  alcohol  alone 
were  used.  In  the  present  paper  we  have  extended  this  method  of 
extraction  with  the  chloroform-alcohol  mixture  to  the  isolation  of  the 
atropine  and  hyoscyamine  existing  in  the  root  of  Atropa  Belladonna. 
In  preliminary  experiments  10  grams  of  very  finely  powdered  bella- 
donna root  were  extracted  with  chloroform  alone  in  a  Dunstan  and 
Short's  extraction  apparatus.  The  operation  continued  for  three  hours,, 
during  which  time  the  root  had  been  percolated  twenty  successive 
times  with  50  cubic  centimetres  of  boiling  chloroform.  The  percolate, 
which  had  a  light  brown  color,  contained  much  alkaloid  when  the 
residue  was  tested  with  phosphotungstic  acid.  The  marc  was  mixed 
with  lime  and  boiled  with  alcohol.  The  alcoholic  residue  also  gave 
evidence  of  containing  abundance  of  alkaloid  when  tested  with  phos- 
photungstic acid  and  also  by  its  action  upon  the  pupil  of  the  eye. 
Thus  the  chloroform  had  not  completely  exhausted  the  root  of  alka- 
loid ;  the  experiment  was  again  repeated,  the  chloroform  being  allowed 
to  act  for  a  longer  time,  but  yet  the  marc  contained  considerably  more 
than  traces  of  alkaloid.  The  same  quantity  of  finely  powdered  bella- 
donna root  was  now  acted  upon  by  a  mixture  of  equal  parts  of  chloro- 
form and  absolute  alcohol  under  precisely  the  same  conditions.  The 
percolate  contained  much  alkaloid,  but  no  trace  could  be  detected  in 
the  remaining  marc.  This  experiment  was  likewise  repeated  several 
times  with  the  same  result.  It  was  thus  evident  that  just  as  chloro- 
form alone  had  been  shown  to  be  an  inefficient  extractive  agent  for 
nux  vomica  it  was  now  shown  that  the  same  obtains  with  belladonna, 
and  similarly  as  a  mixture  of  chloroform  and  alcohol  was  an  excellent 
solvent  for  the  nux  vomica  alkaloids,  so  the  same  mixture  was  an 
equally  good  solvent  for  the  alkaloidal  salts  in  belladonna.  The  next 
experiments  were  made  with  different  proportions  of  chloroform  and 
alcohol.  A  mixture  of  chloroform  with  25  per  cent,  of  alcohol  occu- 
pied too  long  a  time  in  accomplishing  complete  exhaustion  to  allow  it 
to  be  made  the  basis  of  an  easy  process  for  general  use.  The  best 
results  were  obtained  with  a  mixture  of  equal  parts  of  chloroform  and 
absolute  alcohol,  which  consequently  was  used  in  further  experiments. 
It  was  found  necessary  to  use  absolute  alcohol  on  account  of  the  action 
of  the  water  contained  in  rectified  spirit  upon  the  belladonna,  which 
