ON  THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  QUININE. 
241 
RESEARCHES  ON  THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  QUININE. 
By  Adolphus  Strecker. 
(Translated  from  the  Annalen  d.  Chemie  und  Pharm.,  August,  1854.  By 
J.  M.  Maisch.) 
The  importance  of  quinine  as  a  remedy,  the  increasing  difficulty 
of  obtaining  it  in  sufficient  quantities  from  the  Peruvian  barks,  and 
in  consequence  thereof,  the  increase  of  the  price  of  it,  which  will 
still  rise  with  the  increasing  clearing  of  the  cinchona  forests  ;  all 
this  has  given  a  new  incitation  to  the  hope  entertained  by  scien- 
tific men  to  obtain  quinine  artificially,  the  more  so  as  several 
rewards  have  been  offered  for  such  a  discovery.  The  interesting 
researches  by  A.  Wurtz  and  A.  W.  Hofman,  which  have  made  us 
acquainted  with  a  large  number  of  artificial  bases,  and  which  have 
thrown  much  light  on  the  constitution  of  those  bases  free  of  oxygen, 
justify  the  hope  to  obtain  those  alkaloids  which  contain  oxygen, 
in  a  similar  manner,  after  their  real  constitution  shall  have  been 
ascertained  by  future  researches. 
The  chemical  properties  of  quinine,  notwithstanding  its  great 
importance,  are  still  less  known  than  those  of  other  bodies  of  much 
less  interest.  Not  even  on  the  per-centic  composition,  much  less 
on  the  chemical  formula,  do  the  chemists  agree.  With  regard  to 
its  constitution  there  has  hardly  been  dared  to  venture  a  supposi- 
tion. 
Before  it  is  possible  to  "  compound  "  quinine,  the  per-centage 
of  its  elementary  constituents,  its  equivalent  and  empiric  formula, 
its  real  components  must  be  investigated  and  settled,  and  then 
these  components  must  either  be  looked  for  in  other  organic  pro- 
ducts, or  else  be  formed  artificially. 
The  following  may  be  considered  as  a  contribution  towards  that 
end  : 
If  the  old  formula  C60  H30  N3  06,  found  by  Pelletier  and  Dumas, 
be  dropped,  there  are  still  three  formulae  between  which  chemists 
are  divided.  Liebig  expresses  the  equivalent  of  quinine  by  C20 
H  2  N02  ;  Regnault  calculated  the  formula  C41  H25  N204,  which, 
corrected  in  accordance  with  the  real  equivalent  of  carbon, .is  C4(> 
II24  N2  04  ;  Laurent  obtained  the  formula  C38  H22  N2  04.  The  first 
two  are  alike  in  per-centage,  and  differ  only  in  the  equivalent; 
but  the  last  one  differs  materially  from  the  former. 
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