PROXIMATE PRINCIPLES OF VEGETABLES. 
91 
bitter taste and colour. The charcoal, after being washed 
and dried, was treated with alcohol, to which it communi- 
cated the colour and taste of the Col umbo. This solution 
deposited minute crystals of columbine on spontaneous 
evaporation. If, instead of treating the charcoal with alco- 
hol, a stream of water is passed through it as long as the 
liquid which filters has a bitter taste, the columbine is re- 
moved, but not the colouring substance, which may now be 
obtained separately by digesting the charcoal with alcohol. 
The columbine may thus be obtained perfectly pure and 
crystalline. 
Colocynthine. — A concentrated infusion of the parenchy- 
ma of the fruits of the colocynth was first precipitated with 
acetate of lead, filtered, and treated in the same manner as 
for the preparation of columbine. The solution obtained on 
spontaneous evaporation deposited the colocynthine in mam- 
mil lated tufts. 
Strychnine. — An infusion of mix vomica, treated in the 
same manner as the Columbo, furnished strychnine, with 
all the physical and chemical characters of that obtained by 
the processes hitherto employed — a proof of the pre-existence 
of alkaloids in vegetables. 
Of the substances upon which I experimented only the 
three last were found to possess the property of combining 
with animal charcoal, and then leaving it when treated with 
water, and on treating this solution with charcoal again 
uniting with it. 
The juices of hyoscyamus, hemlock, &c, treated in the same 
manner as the flowers arnica, yielded the principles of these 
plants, some in an amorphous, others in the crystalline 
state. Wishing to confirm as much as possible the undoubted 
existence of certain proximate principles in vegetables in the 
alkaloid state, I prepared morphine, narcotine and quinine 
by the same method. The experiments to obtain the latter 
appear to me to be conclusive. 
500 grms. of Cinchona calisaya were exhausted with 
water, acidulated with sulphuric acid, and the acid decoc- 
