AmMay%r8h6arm'}  Gleanings  in  Materia  Medica.  253 
Raffinose  seems  to  exist  ready  formed  in  beet  root,  and  not  to  be  gene- 
rated on  storing  the  root  or  during  the  refining  process,  as  appears  to 
be  the  view  of  Loiseau,  its  discoverer  (1876).  Gossypose  was  isolated 
by  Bohm  and  Ritthausen  from  cotton-seed  cake. — Ber.  Deutsch  Chem. 
Ges.,  1886,  pp.  1779-1786. 
Cochineal. — C.  Liebermann  found  in  carmine  nitrogen,  averaging 
3.7  per  cent.,  of  which  only  about  0.25  per  cent,  is  expelled  as  ammo- 
nia on  boiling  with  diluted  alkali,  the  balance  being  present  as  pro- 
teids.  The  ash  amounts  to  about  8  per  cent,  and  was  found  to  consist 
of  Sn02  0.67,  A1203  43.09,  CaO  44.85,  MgO  1.02,  Na20  3.23,  K20 
3.56  and  P205  3.20.  The  coloring  matter  does  not  appear  to  be  a 
glucoside.  A  commercial  sample  of  carmine  yielded  on  analysis: 
moisture  17,  nitrogen  compounds  20,  ash  7,  coloring  matter  56  per 
cent.,  and  traces  of  wax. 
The  white  covering  of  silver-gray  cochineal  consists  of  a  peculiar 
wax,  which  in  the  black  cochineal  has  probably  been  melted  through 
the  use  of  a  high  temperature  in  killing  the  insect,  after  which  it  is 
partly  left  as  a  thin  transparent  coating.  This  wax  is  easily  removed 
from  the  unbroken  insect  by  boiling  with  benzol,  when  on  cooling 
most  of  the  wax  will  crystallize,  and  is  obtained  pure  by  repeated 
crystallization  from  benzol  or  glacial  acetic  acid.  This  coccerin,  on 
long  continued  boiling  with  alcoholic  solution  of  potassa,  yields  a  white 
crystalline  acid,  coccerylic  acid,  which  melts  at  about  92°  C,  and  has 
probably  the  composition,  C31H6203.  The  other  decomposition  pro- 
duct is  cocceryl  alcohol,  which  is  also  a  white  crystalline  powder,  but 
melts  at  about  104°  C,  and  seems  to  have  the  formula,  C30H62O2. 
After  powdering  cochineal,  previously  exhausted  with  boiling 
benzol,  ether  takes  up  myristin  and  a  deep  red-colored  oil,  which  parts 
with  its  coloring  matter  readily  on  agitating  its  ethereal  solution  with 
water.  The  liquid  oil  amounts  to  between  4  and  6  per  cent.,  and 
contains  free  fat  acids.  1  he  myristin  crystallizes  from  the  liquid  fat, 
and  is  obtained  pure  by  re-crystallization  from  hot  alcohol;  it  is 
present  to  the  extent  of  from  1.5  to  2  per  cent. 
The  total  yield  of  wax  and  fats  from  a  sample  of  silver  gray 
cochineal  was  12  per  cent.  In  the  unbroken  state  this  variety  yielded, 
from  different  examples,  between  1  and  2  per  cent,  of  coccerin,  while 
black  cochineal  gave  from  0;5  to  1  per  cent.,  and  in  one  case  1.5  per 
cent,  of  coccerin;  but  4.2  per  cent,  was  obtained  from  gran  ilia. — 
Ber.  D.  Chem.  Ges.,  1875,  pp.  1969-1983. 
