The simpler natural bases / by George Barger.

  • George Barger
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The simpler natural bases / by George Barger. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tion a substance resembling xylene in odour and other properties, he concluded [1882] that the base obtained from gelatin was an aro¬ matic amine, probably a-phenyl-ethylamine, C6EL . CH(NH2) . CH3. Still later he regarded phenylalanine, which Schulze and Barbieri had discovered in etiolated lupin seedlings, as the parent substance of his putrefaction base, which he [1889] therefore considered to be f3- phenyl-ethylamine, formed according to the equation :— C6H5.CH2. CH(NH2). cooh = c6h5.ch2.ch2.nh2 + co2. Nencki was thus also the first to invoke the decarboxylation of an amino-acid in explanation of the origin of a putrefaction base. Nencki’s “collidine” was further obtained from putrefied egg white by his' pupil Jeanneret [1877]. The identity of the base from putrid gelatin with /3-phenyl-ethylamine was first rendered absolutely certain by Spiro [1901]. Putrefaction bases of the formula C8HnN or of a similar formula, with properties somewhat resembling those of phenyl-ethylamine, have at various times been obtained by other investigators and one is tempted to regard all these bases as identical with that first isolated by Nencki. In some cases this is indeed almost or quite certain. Thus by the action of a Strepto¬ coccus on fibrin, Emmerling [1897] obtained a base of the formula CsHnN of which the picrate melted at the same temperature as that of synthetic /3-phenyl-ethylamine; the only discrepancy is that the platinichloride is described as readily soluble in water. Similarly a base obtained from putrid horse meat by Barger and Walpole [1909, 1], and having the boiling point and physiological properties of y3-phenyl-ethylamine, was doubtless identical with this amine. It is much more difficult to draw the same conclusion with regard to certain bases described as pyridine derivatives and isolated by Gautier and Etard [1882, 1883] and by Oechsner de Coninck,[1886-91 ]. The former investigators obtained from putrid mackerel a base, boiling at 2io°, d0 = 1 ‘0296, which was analysed as platinichloride. The formula deduced was C8Hi3N and the base was named dihydrocollidine, but the analyses are in better, although not good, agreement with the formula C8HUN. No evidence of its being a pyridine derivative was adduced and Nencki [1882] at first regarded Gautier and Etard’s hydrocollidine as identical with phenyl-ethylamine, but subsequently [1889], after a visit to Gautier, he gave up this view. Oechsner de Coninck obtained a base of the formula C8HnN from putrid cuttle¬ fish ; on oxidation it yielded nicotinic acid ; it was examined much more closely than Gautier and Etard’s “ hydrocollidine ” and in this 2
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