BERBERINE IN BARBERRY AND COLUMBO ROOT. 323 
To remove any free adherent acid, it was dissolved in alco- 
hol of 863, and precipitated from this solution by ether. 
The salt so obtained was an indistinctly crystalline bright 
yellow powder of a disagreeable bitter taste. An aqueous 
solution of it furnished yellow amorphous precipitates with 
chloride of platinum, perchloride of mercury, tannic acid, 
chlorate and chromate of potash. The dry salt disengaged 
ammonia when heated with soda lime, but the aqueous 
solution afforded no ammonia when treated with potash. 
All these properties indicated that the organic base com- 
bined with hydrochloric acid must either be berberine or 
one very similar to it. Several careful analyses, the results 
of which agree with the known composition of berberine, 
have proved that this substance is really berberine, and that 
consequently the same organic base is produced in the root 
of the European Berberis and the root of the East Indian 
Cocculus. 
This circumstance merits attention in a therapeutical 
point of view, since the berberine is present to a large 
amount in the Columbo root, and indeed to a much greater 
extent than the columbine. While the latter is almost 
insoluble in water and but sparingly soluble in cold alcohol, 
berberine is abundantly dissolved by hot water and by 
alcohol ; so that in using an aqueous extract of Columbo, 
besides starch, berberine alone can be looked upon as the 
essential principle. 
This occurrence of berberine in Bei^heris and Cocculus is 
also interesting in a botanical point of view. The true 
alkaloids, with the exception of caffeine, which however 
likewise differs from them in its behaviour, exhibit in their 
distribution a relation with the natural affinities of the 
plants. The views of botanists respecting the correct sys- 
tematic position of the Berberidex are still divided. Bart- 
ling arranges them with Menispermeas to which Cocculus 
belongs, and forms of these two families the class Cocculmas 
