30 
The  Chemistry  of  Sassafras. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
l     January,  18Sr9. 
Those  fractions  of  sassafras  oil  which  boil  in  the  neighborhood  of 
200°  C,  upon  cooling  yield  an  abundance  of  colorless  prisms,  which, 
after  proper  purification,  can  be  recognized  as  common  dextro-cam- 
phor  C10H16O,  by  their  melting-point,  odor,  optical  rotation  and  the 
formation  of  a  well  crystallizing  oxime  melting  at  1 1  5  °.  In  one  au- 
thentic specimen  of  sassafras  oil  as  much  as  6-8  per  cent,  of  cam- 
phor has  been  found  by  reduction  of  the  camphor  to  borneol, 
C10H18O,  acetylizing  the  latter  with  acetic  anhydride,  and  saponifying 
a  weighed  amount  of  the  acetylized  oil. 
The  highest  boiling  fractions  of  the  oil  seem  to  contain  a  small 
amount  of  a  sesquiterpene  C15H24  according  to  certain  color  reactions 
apparently  cadinene,  the  presence  of  which,  however,  has  not  yet 
been  proven  beyond  all  doubt. 
The  composition  of  oil  of  sassafras  bark  may  therefore  be  sum- 
marized as  follows : 
Attention  might  be  called  to  the  singular  fact  that  all  these  com- 
pounds contain  ten  atoms  of  carbon  in  the  molecule,  with  the 
exception  of  cadinene,  which  has  half  as  many  more.  It  seems 
also  that  this  circumstance  points  to  an  intergenetic  relation  of  these 
various  products  of  the  same  plant.  Another  coincidence  which 
should  not  pass  unnoticed,  is,  that  oil  of  sassafras* bark  in  its  quali- 
tative chemical  composition  closely  resembles  oil  of  camphor, 
which  is,  however,  not  so  surprising,  seeing  that  the  sassafras  and 
camphor  trees  belong  to  the  same  plant  family. 
This  similarity  in  composition  has  been  for  some  time  familiar 
to  chemical  manufacturers  who  seized  the  opportunity  for  producing 
substitutes  for  oil  of  sassafras  from  the  oily  by-products  of  the  manu- 
facture of  camphor.  As  a  result,  artificial  (?)  commercial,  oils  of 
sassafras  are  nothing  else  than  fractions  of  Japanese  camphor  oil,  of 
about  the  same  specific  gravity,  I  07,  as  that  of  the  natural  oil. 
Such  substitutes  are,  for  their  cheapness,  very  largely  used,  espe- 
cially by  soap  manufacturers.  Pure  safrol,  which  is  produced  com- 
mercially from  the  same  source  also  finds  a  considerable  use  in 
Safrol,  C10H10O. 
Per  cent. 
.  80 
IO 
d-Camphor,  C10H16O  
Eugenol,  C10H12O2  
Cadinene,  (  ?  )  C15H24,  and  residue 
o"5 
27 
6'8 
