THE  AMERICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY. 
DECEMBER,  1879. 
ON  THE  ALKALOID  OF  THE  BAPTISIA  TINCTORIA. 
By  Francis  V.  Greene,  M.D.,  U.S.  Navy. 
Read  at  the  Pharmaceutical  Meeting  November  18. 
In  the  volume  of  the  uAmer.  Jour.  Pilar."  for  the  year  1862,  there 
appears  at  page  310  an  article  on  the  "  Baptisia  tinctoria,"  by  B.  L. 
Smedley,  in  which  he  claims  to  have  isolated  the  alkaloid  of  this  plant. 
The  process  given  is  as  follows:  The  root  was  boiled  with  water 
acidulated  with  hydrochloric  acid,  and  to  the  strained  decoction  milk  of 
lime  added  in  slight  excess.  The  copious  precipitate  produced  was 
collected,  washed  with  distilled  water,  cried  and  treated  with  boiling 
alcohol.  On  evaporating  the  alcohol  from  the  filtered  solut'on  there 
remained  an  extract  of  a  light  yellow  color,  which  was  treated  with 
hot  water  slightly  acidulated  with  sulphuric  acid.  The  solution  thus 
obtained  was  agitated  with  animal  charcoal,  filtered  and  set  aside  to 
crystallize;  it  yielded  perfectly  transparent  crystals,  in  plates,  similar  to 
those  of  potassic  chlorate.  It  was  further  stated  that  by  adding  ammonia 
in  slight  excess  to  the  above  liquid  a  white,  feathery  precipitate  of  the 
alkaloid  was  obtained. 
A  later  investigator,  J.  A.  Warner  (op.  cit.  supra,  1871,  p.  251),  after 
repeating  the  above  process,  and  ascertaining  that  the  crystalline  salt  of 
the  first  writer  was  composed  entirely  of  calcium  sulphate,  announced 
the  following  method,  by  which  he  had  separated  what  he  supposed  to  be 
the  chloride  of  the  alkaloid  of  this  plant.  A  concentrated  tincture  of 
the  root,  after  being  rendered  slightly  acid  by  the  addition  of  sulphuric 
acid,  was  evaporated  to  a  small  bulk,  a  large  quantity  of  water  added 
and  the  precipitated  resin  separated  by  filtration.  To  the  clear  filtrate 
solution  of  potassio-mercuric  iodide  was  added  in  slight  excess,  the 
precipitate  collected,  suspended  in  water,  decomposed  by  sulphuretted 
hydrogen  and  the  sulphide  of  mercury  removed  by  filtration.  The 
filtrate,  which  was  supposed  to  contain  the  alkaloid  in  solution  in  the 
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