Chemical examination of elaterium and the characters of elaterin / by Frederick B. Power and Charles W. Moore.

  • Frederick Belding Power
Date:
[1909]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Chemical examination of elaterium and the characters of elaterin / by Frederick B. Power and Charles W. Moore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    The principle which occurs in commerce under the name of elaterin, and which, as above noted, is recognised under that title by the British and United States Pharmacopoeias, has received the attention of several investigators during the past few years. The formula adopted for it by the Pharmacopoeias, namely, C.J0H28O5, is that first suggested by Zwenger.* * Berg® has assigned to elaterin the formula C^eHaaOj, and considers it to exist in the ju’ce of the fruits of Ecballium in the form of a glucoside, which is accompanied by an enzyme designated as elaterase. The product regarded as a glucoside does not appear, however, to have been specially characterised, and was in fact only obtained in an amorphous state. Thorns,^ in a report on experiments conducted by Mann, considers elaterin to possess the formula CooHjoO,, whereas Poliak® obtained re- sults which were in fairly close agreement with the formula suggested by Zwenger, namely, CjoH.gOj. Hemmelmayr,® on the other hand, with consideration of his analyses and mole- cular weight determinations, has assigned to elaterin the formula In view of the varying results of the above-mentioned investigators, it is evident that even the empirical formula of the product known as elaterin cannot as yet be considered definitely established. The present authors, having recently had occasion to pre- pare some elaterin, have deemed it of interest to examine the other constituents of elaterium, so far as the limited quantity of material available would permit. At the same time some commercial specimens of ehierin have been examined, and the very interesting and important facts which have thus been revealed, together with the deductions therefrom, are summarised at the end of this paper. Experimental. The material employed for this investigation consisted of the best English elaterium, which was obtained from a re- liable source, and conformed in its general characters to the requirements of the British Pharmacopoeia. Determinations of the amount of moisture and of ash gave the following results:—04180, when heated at 110° C., lost 2 Ann. d. Chem., 1842, 43, 460, 8 Bull. 8oe. Chim., 1897 [iii.], 17, 85, and 1906 [lii.], 35, 435; Chem, Centralblatt, 1897, I., 483, and 1906, II., 610; Pharm. Joum., 1906, 77,283; Compt. rend., 1907, 143, 1161, and Chem. Centralblatt, 1907,1., 636; Compt. rend., 1909, 148, 566, and Chem. Centralblatt, 1909,1., 1239. * Chem. Zeit., 1906, p. 923, and Ph irm. Joum., 1906, 77, 351, 8 Ber, d. deutseh, chem. Oes., 1906, 39, 3380. 6 Ibidem, 1906, 39, 3652.
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