Am.  Jour.  Pharni.  ) 
April,  1909.  j 
Alpha-  and  Beta-Ionones. 
181 
By  these  findings  it  will  be  seen  that  cow's  milk  contains  nu- 
merous ferments,  and  these,  have  been  found,  also,  in  the  milk  of  a 
r  mber  of  mammifers,  such  as  the  ass,  mare,  goat,  sheep,  sow,  buf- 
falo and  woman. 
The  ferments  found  in  cow's  milk  are  curdling,  proteolytic  or 
proteid-digesting,  amylolytic  or  carbohydrate-digesting,  and  hydro- 
lytic  or  fat-splitting.  The  quantities  of  the  ferments  present  are 
small,  but  when  we  consider  that  they  are-  catalyzers,  and  exert 
their  power  over  and  over  again,  after  the  end  products  have  been 
removed  from  them,  that  they  are  probably  the  source  from  which 
the  growing  body  gets  its  natural  supply  of  ferments,  and  that  they 
accumulate  within  the  body,  the  physiological  significance  of  their 
pre  ence  in  milk  becomes  apparent. 
ALPHA-  AND  BETA-IONONES.1 
By  Samuel  P.  Sadtler. 
The  artificial  manufacture  of  both  flavoring  and  odoriferous 
natural  principles  has  long  been  a  problem  which  has  enlisted  the 
skill  of  some  of  the  ablest  of  organic  chemists.  A  notable  achieve- 
ment in  this  line  was  the  production  of  artificial  vanillin  in  1874,  by 
Professor  Tiemann  of  the  University  of  Berlin,  from  the  coniferin 
of  the  pine  cones.  This  new  and  widely  noticed  synthetic  product 
was  shown  in  the  German  Chemical  Exhibit  at  the  Centennial  Ex- 
position in  this  city  in  1876,  and  I  was  so  fortunate  as  to  get  a  small 
vial  of  this  exhibit  at  the  time,  which  I  still  have  as  an  interesting 
historical  specimen. 
The  same  Professor  Tiemann,  who  had  in  the  meantime  suc- 
cessfully launched  vanillin  in  a  commercial  way,  then  undertook  to 
study  the  nature  of  the  odoriferous  principle  of  the  orris  root  and 
the  violet.  After  an  extensive  investigation  he  succeeded  in  isolating 
the  odoriferous  principle  "  irone,"  C13H20O.  As  thus  extracted  it 
was  very  costly  and  the  amount  was  small.  He  then  undertook  the 
preparation  of  a  synthetic  compound  of  the  same  formula  as  irone, 
hoping  thus  to  get  a  similar  odoriferous  principle.  By  the  condensa- 
tion of  citral,C10H16O,with  acetone,  C3H60,he  obtained  a  compound 
1  Read  before  the  Philadelphia  Branch  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical 
Association,  March  2,  1909. 
