A Manual of the Chemistry of the Carbon Compounds

470 THE CHEMI8TKY OJ"
Gryptopine C^ILoNOg crystallizes from alcohol in short, hexagonal
prisms, melting at 217°. Its salts taste bitter and cooling like peppermint.
In concentrated sulphuric acid it dissolves with a deep-violet
colour.
Nitroctryptopint C^HM^O^NOJ is produced by the action of dilute
nitric acid crystallizing ircm alcohol in pale-yellow plates, which are
coloured blood-red by concentrated sulphuric acid.
Lanthopine C^H^NX^ is very sparingly soluble in alcohol, and
crystallizes from chwroforni in white prisms. It dissolves in concentrated
sulphuric acid with a pale-violet colour, which turns darkbrown
on heating.
Ufarceine C^H^NO,, is readily soluble in boiling water, and forms
colourless crystals; when given in a small dose it produces,quiet
sleep. Iodine colours its solution blue, like starch .paste.
ALKALOIDS OCCURRING IN STRYCHNOS-SPECIES.
The seeds of Stiychnos Ntuc-vomiea and Strychnos Ignatius contain
two very poisonous bases.
Strychnine C^H^N^. — The St. Ignatius-beans contain about
1*5 per cent, of this base, which, however, is generally obtained from
mix vomica. These very tough seeds are softoned by boiling them
with alcohol, powdered, and exhausted with boiling dilute alcohol.
The alcohol is distilled off, and lead acetate added to the residue,
which precipitates foreign matters. The filtrate, after being freed from
lead, is concentrated, and the alkaloids precipitated with magnesia.
The precipitate, after standing for some days, is collected on a filter,
and exhausted with boiling alcohol. On cooling, the greater portion of
the strychnine crystallizes out j the mother-liquor is neutralized with
nitric acid and concentrated. On leaving it to stand, strychnine
nitrate crystallizes out, and is purified by recrystallization.
Strychnine crystallizes in brilliant rhombic prisms, possessing auch
an intensely bitter taste that it is even perceptible in a solution
of one part of the foise in one million parts of water. In water it
dissolves but sparingly, more readily in dilnte alcohol, and very freely
in chloroform; in ether and absolute alcohol it is insoluble. It forma
soluble and erystollizable salts, having an intensely bitter taste, and
being, like the base itself, fearful poisons, producing in a small dose
tetanus and death. The antidotes ore morphine, atropine, and chloral
hydrate.
The least trace of strychnine can be readily identified by moistening
it with pure concentrated sulphuric acid, and adding a crystal of
potassium dichromate, when a deep-purple colour is produced, changing
soon into red and yellow. Another very delicate test is to inject
a small qnantity of a very dilnte solution under the skin of a frog;