Am.  Jour.  Pharm."! 
Not.,  1883.  J 
Constitution  of  the  Alkaloids. 
553 
lin."  These  compounds  had  a  very  surprising  febrifuge  action,  with- 
out any  unpleasant  after  effects  or  local  disturbances. 
The  most  active  workers  in  the  field  of  synthetic  formation  of  the 
alkaloids  have  been  Wischnegradsk}^,  of  St.  Petersburg, — who,  unfor- 
tunately for  science,  died  at  an  untimely  age  in  1880, — Konigs  and 
Fischer,  of  Munich,  and  Ladenburg,  of  Kiel.  The  study  of  the  decom- 
position products  of  the  cinchona  alkaloids  especially  points  quite  dis- 
tinctly to  the  probable  existence  in  quinine  of  a  hydrogen  addition 
product  of  pyridine,  in  combination  with  a  methyl-quinoline  group. 
The  many  experiments  that  are  now  being  made  to  test  this  and  other 
questions  that  suggest  themselves  will  not  long  leave  us  in  the  dark. 
Whether  a  practical  commercial  synthesis  of  quinine  will  follow  is 
another  matter,  but  it  is  within  the  bounds  of  possibility,  or  perhaps 
even  of  probability. 
It  must  not  be  supposed  that  no  syntheses  of  alkaloids  have  been 
effected  as  yet.  By  heating  butyl-aldehyde  with  alcoholic  ammonia  is 
formed  paraconine,  an  alkaloid  isomeric  with  the  natural  conine,  but 
differing  in  physiological  action.  By  the  action  of  sodium  upon  pyri- 
dine is  produced  a  compound  CioHgNg,  known  as  dipyridyl,  and  this, 
under  the  influence 'of  nascent  hydrogen,  takes  up  six  atoms  and 
becomes  isonicotine  C10H14N2,  a  physiologically  active  alkaloid,  isomeric 
with  the  true  nicotine.  The  formation  of  a  series  of  alkaloids  under 
the  name  of  codeines,  by  the  substitution  of  other  organic  radicals 
instead  of  methyl  in  the  codeine  reaction,  has  already  been  alluded  to. 
Atropine  can  be  formed  by  uniting  tropine  and  tropic  acid,  the  two 
decomposition  products  already  noted.  The  latter  of  these  products  is 
already  shown  to  be  capable  of  synthetical  formation,  and  the  other 
will  no  doubt  be  formed  in  the  same  way.  The  artificial  atropine  is 
identical  with  the  natural  alkaloid.  Ladenburg  has  also  formed  a 
series  of  artificial  alkaloids,  called  tropeines,  by  uniting  the  base  tropine 
with  different  organic  acids,  as  in  the  case  of  the  compound  of  mandelic 
acid  and  tropine  known  as  homatropine,  an  alkaloid  of  action  similar 
to  atropine,  but  possessing  some  decided  advantages  in  its  use.  Piperine 
has  also  been  made  by  the  uniting  of  piperidine  and  piperic  acid,  and, 
as  piperidine  has  already  been  formed  from  pyridine,  we  have  here  a 
true  synthesis  also.  Both  theobromine  and  caffeine,  its  methyl  deriva- 
tive, have  been  made  from  xanthine,  which  itself  can  be  formed  from 
guanine,  a  constituent  of  guano. 
We  may  conclude,  from  this  reference  to  what  has  been  done  in  the 
