Bark of "Bois Piquant."
BY E. HECKEL AND F. SCHLAGDENHAUFFEN.
The bark examined was the variety peculiar to Guiana, and agreed exactly with Guibout's description of Zanthoxylum caribaeum. Its anatomical structure is entirely different from that of angustura bark, which it resembles in external appearance. When macerated with water, it yields a bitter, slightly acid, yellow solution, which turns brown with ferric chloride, and yields an abundant yellow precipitate with mercuric chloride, stannous chloride, tannin, picric acid, double iodides, or phosphomolybdic acid, but gives only a slight turbidity with lead acetate. Nitric acid produces a deep red color. When extracted with light petroleum, the bark yields a considerable quantity of chlorophyll, fat, and wax, together with a crystalline substance which can also be extracted by alcohol. This substance forms colorless needles of the composition C12H24O, which melt at 285°, and gives no coloration with nitric, sulphuric, or hydrochloric acid.
If the alcoholic extract, after separation of these crystals, is diluted with water, mixed with lime, evaporated to dryness, and the residue extracted with boiling alcohol, a second crystalline substance is obtained which resembles the vegetable alkaloids in its general properties. It exists in the bark only in very small quantities. With nitric acid, it gives a deep-red coloration, but if the liquid is evaporated on a water-bath and mixed with stannous chloride, no violet color is produced. Sulphuric and hydrochloric acid have no action on it, but sulphuric acid and potassium dichromate, manganese dioxide, or lead dioxide, produce a violet coloration similar to that produced by strychnine mixed with a little selenium. An alcoholic solution of bromine also produces a deep blue coloration which persists for a long time. Five mgrms. of this alkaloid injected in aqueous solution beneath the skin of a frog, produce rapid general paralysis, followed by death in about half an hour, and similar effects are observed with rabbits and guinea-pigs.
A nitrogenous resinous substance, soluble in water, was also obtained from the bark. It has the general properties of the alkaloids, and in its physiological action very closely resembles the crystalline alkaloid just described, although it differs from it in physical properties. None of the so-called xanthopicrite could be obtained from the bark.—Compt. rend., 98, 996-998; Jour. Chem. Soc., August, 1884, p. 848.
The American Journal of Pharmacy, Vol. 56, 1884, was edited by John M. Maisch.
