Chemical examination of the fruit of Brucea antidysenterica, Lam / by Frederick B. Power and Arthur H. Salway.

  • Power, Frederick B. (Frederick Belding), 1853-1927
Date:
[1907?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Chemical examination of the fruit of Brucea antidysenterica, Lam / by Frederick B. Power and Arthur H. Salway. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    used occasionally by the natives of these parts where it grows, both externally and internally. Among some of its uses are those of a purgative, vermifuge, and alterative internally, while the local application to raw wounds is believed to encourage granula¬ tion and arrest putrefaction.” To all the above gentlemen who have aided us in this investigation our acknowledgments are due. Experimental. The fruits of Brucea antidysenterica, as received by us, were considerably larger and more coarsely reticulate than those of B. sumatrana (“Ko-sam seeds”), and also much lighter in colour. As an indication of their relative weights it may be noted that about five of the former and thirty of the latter, respectively, weigh 1 Gm. The kernel of the seed possesses an intensely and persistently bitter taste. As a preliminary experiment, a portion of the crushed fruit was extracted successively in a Soxhlet apparatus with the following solvents, and the resulting extracts finally dried in a water oven until of constant weight:— Petroleum (b.p. 35-50° C.) . extracted 19-15 per cent. Ether • • „ 1*05 Chloroform • • „ 2-20 Alcohol • • „ 6-95 Total . 29-35 per cent. For the complete examination of the constituents of the fruit, 2030 Gm. of the crushed material were extracted in a large Soxhlet apparatus, first with light petroleum (b.p. 35-50° C.), and subsequently with hot alcohol. I. Examination of the Petroleum Extract. This extract was first heated on a water-batli and then kept for some time in a vacuum, in order to remove the solvent as completely as possible, when it amounted to 450 Gm., cor¬ responding to 2216 per cent, of the weight of the fruit. It had the characters of a fatty oil, and was of a brownish-yellow colour. Its constants were determined, with the following results:—Specific gravity 18°/18°C. =0 9025 ; iodine value = 815; acid value=2 3 ; saponification value = 185 4. From these data it was evident that the fatty oil contained a large proportion of the glycerides of unsaturated acids, triolein, for example, having an iodine value of 86-2.