Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
July,  1879.  J 
Paricine  and  Aricine. 
375 
Weidenbusch,  which  were  manifestly  carried  out  with  impure  material. 
At  all  events,  the  results  obtained  by  Weidenbusch  are  all  erroneous 
from  beginning  to  end,  and  the  speculations  connected  with  them  by 
Gerhardt  are  worthless. 
During  my  investigations  I  have  not  been  able  to  recognize  any  rela- 
tion between  paricine  and  aricine.  Aricine1  has  a  composition  essen- 
tially different  from  that  of  paricine,  it  corresponding  with  the  formula 
C^H^NgO^  It  is  isomeric  with  cusconine,  and  probably  also  with 
cusconidine.  Under  the  influence  of  heat  and  strong  acids  aiicine  is 
indeed  changed  into  an  amorphous  alkaloid,  though  with  some  difficulty, 
but  this  amorphous  transformation  product  possesses  other  properties 
and  another  composition, than  paricine. 
Howard  recalls  the  fact  that  I  have  mentioned  as  being  contained  in 
succirubra,  besides  paricine,  two  or  three  basic  substances,  and  he 
appears  to  wish  to  connect  these  with  aricine.  These  two  or  three 
basic  substances,  however,  are  derived  from  the  diacid  cinchona  alka- 
loids, to  which  conquinia,  cinchonia,  etc.,  belong.  Aricine,  cusconine, 
cusconidine,  paytine,  quinamine,  conquinamine  and  paricine  are  mono- 
acid  alkaloids. 
Howard  asserts  that  paricine  may  be  an  oxidation  product  of  aricine. 
This  opinion,  however,  is  based  only  upon  a  misunderstanding  that 
apparently  had  its  origin  in  the  fact  that  the  substance  which  Howard 
has  in  his  collection  under  the  name  "aricine,"  and  which,  together 
with  its  combinations,  he  has  shown  to  his  friends,  no  doubt  contained 
already-formed  paricine.  The  investigation  of  this  preparation  carried 
out  by  his  nephew,  Mr.  David  Howard,2  allows  me  to  get  a  glance — 
and,  indeed,  a  chemical  glance — at  it,  which  tells  me  that  this  aricine 
may  be  anything  else,  but  not  the  alkaloid  discovered  by  Pelletier  and 
Corriol.  In  this,  of  course,  I  make  the  assumption  that  the  alkaloid 
prepared  by  D.  Howard  is,  as  this  chemist  states,  identical  with  that 
prepared  by  J.  £.  Howard.  This  chemist  says  that  the  sulphate  of  his 
alkaloid  did  not  crystallize  from  alcohol  like  the  sulphate  actually 
described  by  Pelletier,  and  that  it  probably  contained  paricine.     I  have 
1  A  specimen  of  bark  containing  aricine  was  about  three  years  since  imported 
into  Frankfort.  Herr  Jobst  obtained  for  me  5  kilos  of  this  bark,  the  rest  came  to 
England.  This  bark  contains  o'6z  per  cent,  of  aricine,  C93  per  cent,  of  cusconine 
and  016  per  cent,  of  cusconidine. 
2  "  Pharmaceutical  Journal  "  [  3]  v.,  908. 
