ON  CYCLAMEN  EUROPIUM. 
21 
ON  CYCLAMEN  EUROPIUM. 
By  S.  de  Luca. 
(Translated  from  Journ.  fur  prakt.  Chem.,  vol.  71,  p.  330.  By  Wm.  T.  Wenzell.) 
PART  I. 
The  Cyclamen  Europium*  is  a  plant  cultivated  to  some  extent 
in  France  for  its  beautiful  flowers.  The  flat  bulbous  root,  which 
is  furnished  with  blackish  rootlets,  contains  a  sugar  capable 
of  fermentation,  starch,  gum,  and  an  acrid  poisonous  principle. 
Its  juice  exhibits  an  acid  reaction,  and  possesses  an  extraordinary 
acrid  and  strong  astringent  taste.  These  properties  have  induced 
me  to  examine  the  tubers.  I  shall  therefore  give  in  the  first 
part  of  this  treatise  a  description  of  the  active  principle  which  I 
separated,  and  call  Cyclaminf.  Four  kilogrammes  of  tubers, 
after  washing  in  distilled  water,  were  sliced  and  macerated  45 
days  in  4  litres  of  rectified  alcohol,  in  a  place  secured  from  light. 
The  alcoholic  solution  was  then  decanted,  the  same  tubers  tritura- 
ted, again  treated  in  the  same  bottle  with  three  litres  of  alcohol, 
and  after  a  month's  time  expressed.  The  residuum,  which  still 
possessed  a  slight  acrid  taste,  was  again  triturated  and  treated 
as  above  with  2  litres  of  alcohol,  which,  after  twenty  days,  was 
also  expressed.  The  several  alcoholic  liquids  wTere  then  united, 
filtered,  and  the  larger  portion  of  alcohol  removed  by  distillation. 
The  residue,  which  was  gelatinous,  was  evaporated  to  dryness  in 
a  waterbath,  secluded  from  light,  and  then  succesively  ex- 
hausted with  cold  alcohol.  The  alcoholic  liquids  obtained  were 
then  mixed,  filtered,  and  placed  for  spontaneous  evaporation 
in  a  cellar.  After  forty  day's  repose,  there  appeared  in  the 
bottom  of  the  evaporating  dish  a  whitish,  amorphous  deposit  in 
the  form  of  small  masses.  This  was  washed  several  times  in 
cold  alcohol  and  finally  dissolved  in  boiling  alcohol.    This  hot 
"*  The  root  contains  on  an  average,  80  per  cent,  of  water  and  yielded 
0  8  per  cent,  of  ashes,  which,  according  to  Ubaldirai,  contained  potasssa, 
soda,  lime,  magnesia,  silica,  chlorine,  sulphuric  and  phosphoric  acids,  per- 
oxide of  iron,  but  no  manganese  or  alumina,  not  even  a  trace. 
f  This  principle  has  been  long  ago  discovered  by  Saladin,  and  described 
by  him  under  the  name  of  Arthanitin.  (Annal.  de  Chem.  Med.,  t.  vi.  p.  417.— 
Editor  of  Journal  of  Prakt.  Chem. 
