


The hydrochlorate gives up a part of its water of crystallization at the ordinary temperature under a desiccator over sulphuric acid, and the whole of it upon heating.—­Chemist and Druggist.

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Some years ago, O. Hesse, when preparing chinamine from the renewed bark of Cinchona succirubra, found in the mother liquid a new alkaloid, which he then briefly designated as conchinamine.  He has lately given his attention to the separation and preparation of this alkaloid, and gives in Liebig’s Annalen der Chemie, August 31, 1881, the following description of it: 

Preparation.—­The alcoholic mother lye from chinamine is evaporated down and protractedly exhausted with boiling ligroine, whereby conchinamine and a small quantity of certain amorphous bases are dissolved out.  Upon cooling the greater part of the amorphous bases precipitates out.  The ligroine solution is then first treated with dilute acetic acid, and then with a dilute solution of caustic soda, whereupon a large quantity of a resinous precipitate is formed.  This is kneaded up with lukewarm water to remove adherent soda, and then dissolved in hot alcohol.  The alcoholic solution is saturated with nitric acid, which has been previously diluted with half its volume of water, and the whole set aside for a few days to crystallize.  The crystals of conchinamine nitrate are purified by recrystallization from boiling water.  On dissolving these pure crystals of the nitrate in hot alcohol of 60 per cent., and adding ammonia, absolute pure conchinamine separates out on cooling.

Composition.—­Conchinamine may be represented by the formula C_{19}H_{24}N_{2}O_{2}, without water of crystallization.

Properties.—­Conchinamine is easily soluble in hot alcohol of 60 per cent., and in ether and ligroine, from which solutions it crystallizes in quadrilateral shining prisms.  It is extremely soluble in chloroform, but almost insoluble in water.  It melts at 121 deg.  C., forming crystalline stars on cooling.

Salts.—­The salts of conchinamine, like the base itself, have much in common with chinamine, but are, as a rule, more easily crystallizable.  They are prepared by neutralizing an alcoholic solution of the base with the acid in question.—­Chemist and Druggist.

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The valuable properties of which chinoline has been found to be possessed have led to its admission as a therapeutic agent, and the discoverer of these properties, Jul.  Donath, of Baja, in Hungary, in a paper sent to the Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft, September 12, 1881, gives the following further details as to this interesting substance.

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