The organic constituents of plants and vegetable substances and their chemical analysis / by G.C. Wittstein ; authorised translation from the German original, enlarged with numerous additions, by Baron Ferd. von Mueller.

  • Georg Christian Wittstein
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The organic constituents of plants and vegetable substances and their chemical analysis / by G.C. Wittstein ; authorised translation from the German original, enlarged with numerous additions, by Baron Ferd. von Mueller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    200/358 (page 178)
    tabular crystals, inodorous and tasteless, very little soluble in water, better in alcohol and in ether; foi'm with acids colourless, neutral, crystallisable, bitter salts. Primrose Stearojlteil. Passes over with the water in the distillation of the root of Primula Aiiricula and siibsides in the turbid distillate. Has a strong and peculiar, pleasant odour; its alcoholic solution imparts a deep-red colour to solutions of iron. Prilliulill, Indifferent, crystalline substance of the root of Primula veris. Treat the aqueoiis and well-dried extract of the I'oot repeatedly with alcohol of 90°/^, evaporate the spixituous liquids slowly, press the separated crystalline mass between blotting paper, redissolve in alcohol, digest with carbonate of lead, filter and let crystallise.—Forms coloui-less needles or lustreless grains, inodorous and tasteless, neutral, i-eadily soluble in water, also in alcohol (but more in aqueous than in anhydrous), not in ether, fuses by heat and decomposes in higher temperatures. Is not precipitable by metallic salts. [Dr. L. Mutschler states, that according to his researches Piimulin is identical with Cyclamin, and appears to be widely distributed among the order of Primulacefe. He also believes that Cyclamin and Primulin may probably be identical with Saponin.] Prophetin, ßee Ecbalin. Propionic Acid = Ce H5 O3 + HO. Has been found as yet only occasionally in the aqueous distillates of a few vegetable parts (Flores Millefolii, &c.), but is probably more widely distributed. Its presence in such a distillate is recogiiisable to some extent by its odour, resembling butyric and pyro-acetic acids. By saturating this distillate with carbonate of soda, drying and mixing the salts with sulplmric acid, the said odour becomes very striking, and on heating the salt by itself, the odour of alkarsin is evolved. The acid, after being isolated from the concentrated solution of the Propionate of soda by means of sul- phuric acid, floats upon the surface in the form of an oily liquid and disappears only on addition of more water. The Projiionates are unctuous to the touch, and are all soluble in water. The Pro- pionate of soda, dried at 100°, is anhydrous and contains 64:-87 % acid. Protein Snl)StanceS. In the vegetable and more so in the animal kingdom there exist, either dissolved or as solids, a nuuiber of amorphous, not volatile, inodorous and tfisteless, nitrogenised, indifferent substances, which exhibit a great analogy in their com- position and in their general properties. Being originally formed in the vegetable organism, they from thence are introduced by the food into the animal body, and are found there again with little or