254 PROCESS FOR PREPARING VALERIANIC ACID. 
bourdin, Pharmacien a Orleans, has published in the Jour- 
nal de Pharmacie, a method suggested apparently by views 
of the subject similar to our own. He conceived that the 
valerianic acid might be partly in combination with a base, 
and that, by adding a strong acid, the volatile acid would 
be completely set free, so that, on distillation, a much larger 
product would be obtained. The result wholly justified 
his preconceptions. Five kilogrammes of the root gave 
from forty-five to fifty grammes of the acid, a result closely 
agreeing with the quantity produced by our own process. 
The principle of the process suggested is very simple. In 
the one case an acid is presented to a valerianate, or sup- 
posed valerianate, to free it from combination with its base, 
by the exertion of a stronger affinity ; while, in the other 
case, a base (soda) is presented to the valerianic acid, pow- 
erful enough to cause its effectual separation from that with 
which it was previously combined. 
The two processes serve the same end ; but it seems to 
us that the latter is, on the whole, to be preferred, princi- 
pally because it has the advantage of presenting the acid in 
a state of complete solution, from which the operator can 
get it more easily and effectually detached, than when con- 
tained in the hard unyielding cells of the woody fibre. — 
Chemist, from London Lancet. 
