370 
A  r  a  Lia  Nu  die  a  u  lis . 
(  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
1      August,  1899. 
they  deserve,  neither  in  general  nor  in  medical  and  pharmaceutical 
chemistry,  so  I  thought  it  advisable  to  publish  this  little  contribu- 
tion to  the  question  in  this  convenient  place. 
Strassburg  (Germany)  Pharm.  Institute  University, 
March,  1899. 
THE  OIL  AND  TERPENES  OF  ARALIA  NUDICAULIS.1 
By  Wiwam  C.  Aiders,  Sc.D. 
The  specimens  of  Aralia  Nudicaulis  subjected  to  chemical  analy- 
sis were  gathered  by  the  writer  in  the  hilly  woods  of  Bergen  County, 
N.  J.,  near  the  banks  of  the  Passaic  River.  When  freshly  collected, 
the  rhizome  contains  from  40  to  60  per  cent,  of  moisture,  according 
to  the  age  of  the  plant  and  the  time  of  collection.  After  drying  in  the 
air  and  afterwards  at  a  temperature  of  about  100°,  the  drug  was  finely 
powdered,  and  all  the  following  calculations  are  based  on  this  dried 
sample.  The  quantity  of  ash  obtained  on  incineration  varied  in 
younger  and  older  specimens  from  5  to  6  per  cent.,  giving  an  aver- 
age of  5-53  per  cent.  Nearly  one-fourth  of  this,  or  1-38  per  cent, 
of  the  original  dry  sample,  consisted  of  soluble  chlorides  and  sul- 
phates of  sodium  and  potassium. 
A  number  of  preliminary  examinations,  made  by  extracting  the 
organic  matter  with  various  solvents,  had  shown  that  the  solvent, 
generally  employed  first,  after  Parson's  method,  namely,  chloroform, 
would  dissolve  all  the  oils  and  resins  contained  in  the  plant ;  but 
great  difficulties  were  encountered  in  separating  the  fixed  oil  and 
some  of  the  resins.  It  is  owing  to  this  fact  that,  in  a  paper  by 
Alpers  and  Murray  (see  "  Proceedings  American  Pharmaceutical 
Association,"  1897),  the  fixed  oil  was  overlooked  and-  classified  as 
resin.  As  these  preliminary  examinations  further  showed  that 
petroleum-benzin  would  dissolve  the  oils,  but  hardly  any  of  the 
resins  of  the  plant,  it  was  deemed  advisable  to  use  this  solvent  first, 
and  employ  in  general  the  method  recommended  by  Dragendorff 
in  his  "  Plant  Analysis."  Therefore,  250  c.c.  of  the  drug  were 
digested  with  petroleum-benzin  in  a  narrow  cylindrical  percolator, 
covered  with  the  solvent  and  allowed  to  macerate  for  eight  days. 
The  petroleum-benzin  used  for  this  purpose  had  previously  been 
1  Extract  from  the  thesis  for  the  doctorate  at  the  New  York  University. 
