THE  AMERICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PH%EM^GY 
 —  II  ^  - 
OCTOBER,  1 9 13  >• 
SOLVENTS  FOR  ALKALOIDS  AND  ALKaBqID^L 
By  George  L.  Schaefer. 
For  the  last  few  years  I  have  made  use  of  methylalcohol  and 
mixtures  of  it  with  other  liquids  to  extract  alkaloids  from  raw 
materials  and  to  determine  the  alkaloids  in  all  kinds  of  raw  materials 
and  pharmaceutical  products.  Methylalcohol  is  in  the  market  of 
highest  purity  at  a  low  price  under  various  names,  such  as  Colum- 
bian spirits,  Colonial  spirits  and  others,  and  is  in  many  cases  a  far 
better  solvent  for  alkaloids  than  the  more  expensive  ethylalcohol, 
and  its  use  for  laboratories  and  analytical  purposes  is  therefore  often 
to  be  preferred.  Mixtures  of  methylalcohol  with  other  solvents  can 
also  be  used  with  advantage  according  to  the  nature  of  the  testing 
material.  Such  solvents  are  benzol,  toluol,  chloroform,  fusel  oil, 
ether,  acetone  and  others.  Especially  mixtures  with  benzol  or 
chloroform  are  very  good  solvents.  In  many  cases,  where  the  alka- 
loid is  little  or  not  soluble  in  chloroform,  benzol,  etc.,  a  small  quan- 
tity of  methylalcohol  added  to  these  liquids  will  render  it  easily 
soluble.  These  mixtures  are  to  be  preferred  in  place  of  pure  methyl- 
alcohol in  the  presence  of  extractive  or  coloring  matter  as  well  as 
of  inorganic  substances,  which  might  be  more  or  less  soluble  in 
methylalcohol,  but  are  not  soluble  in  the  proper  mixture. 
I  have  found  methylalcohol  to  be  especially  an  excellent  solvent 
for  morphine  alkaloid,  as  also  are  mixtures  with  some  of  the  liquids 
mentioned  before,  especially  with  chloroform  and  benzol.  These 
solvents  enable  the  chemist  to  extract  and  to  determine  morphine 
quickly  and  quantitatively  from  its  salts  or  preparations  in  the  cold 
with  a  small  amount  of  the  liquid.  The  testing  material  must  be 
dry  or  nearly  so,  as  the  solubility  of  morphine  alkaloid  in  methyl  - 
(439) 
