The constituents of the seeds of Hydnocarpus wightiana, Blume, and of Hydnocarpus anthelmintica, Pierre / by Frederick B. Power and Marmaduke Barrowcliff.

Frederick Belding Power

Date:: [1905]

Credit: The constituents of the seeds of Hydnocarpus wightiana, Blume, and of Hydnocarpus anthelmintica, Pierre / by Frederick B. Power and Marmaduke Barrowcliff. Source: Wellcome Collection.

14/20 (page 895)

$etlier removed. The residual oil was then distilled under diminished pressure, when it passed over between 214° and 234°/12 mm., and amounted to 40 grams. It was converted into lead salts by dissolving in alcohol and adding a slight excess of lead acetate also dissolved in alcohol. The solution was then evaporated, mixed with sand, the mass dried, and fractionally extracted with dry ether in a Soxhlet apparatus. Two fractions of lead salts soluble in ether were thus obtained. The acids regenerated from the first fraction, on distillation, passed over principally at 221—226°/12 mm. The distilled fraction had the specific rotatory power [a]u +34,1°, and a percentage iodine- absorption value of 92'4. When treated with mercurous nitrate, it afforded elaidic acid, which proved the presence of oleic acid. The second fraction of lead salt was crystalline, and was found to consist chiefly of lead hydnocarpate. The lead salt insoluble in ether and remaining in the Soxhlet apparatus was decomposed, and the regenerated acid, which was solid, crystallised from alcohol. It was finally obtained in needles melting at 60°, was shown to be a saturated acid, and was, in fact, palmitic acid. 0-0953 gave 0*2609 C02 and 0*1060 H20. C-74*7; H = 12*4. Ci6H3202 requires C = 75-0; H = 125 per cent. The “ press-cake was extracted with alcohol, and the alcoholic extract examined in the same manner as that obtained from the seeds of II. Wightiana. It afforded a very small amount of acids volatile in steam, which were recognised as formic, acetic, and butyric acids. It also contained much inactive glucose and proteid substances. The seeds of H. anthelmintica afforded, furthermore, 0*3 per cent, of a hydrolytic enzyme, which was isolated in the usual manner; it hydrolyses amygdalin, but does not act on potassium myronate. Isolation of Ilydnocarpic Acid fr om Chaulmoogra Oil (from Taraktogenos Kurzii, King). During the investigation of chaulmoogra seeds (Power and Gornall, loc. cit.), it was shown that, after the removal of the chaulmoogric acid by crystallisation of the total fatty acids from alcohol, several fractions were obtained, the quantitative examination of which indicated the presence of a lower homologue of chaulmoogric acid. In view of the isolation of hydnocarpic acid from the two sources previously mentioned in this paper, it seemed desirable to attempt to isolate this acid from the fatty oil from Taraktogenos seeds. A quantity of the total fatty acids was therefore fractionally crys¬ tallised from alcohol, and a large amount of chaulmoogric acid separated$