night and eaten in the morning, is considered to be an excellent preventive against biliousness and febrile attacks (Dymock).
From the kernels, are obtained. —
(A.) A glucoside, Sapotin C29H52O20 , microscopic crystals in appearance, burning taste, laevo-rotatory ([d] D— 321 in alcoholic solution), soluble in water easily ; in cold alcohol sparingly, easier in hot ; insoluble in benzene, ether, chloroform. It melts at 240° with decomposition. With dilute sulphuric acid, it yields sugar and Saporetin C17H32O10which latter is soluble in alcohol and chloroform, insoluble in water and ether.
(B.) An alkaloid, Sapotine bitter in taste, insoluble in water and alkali, but soluble in alcohol, ether and chloroform.
The bark contains two resins, and a large proportion of Sapotaunic acid which is the cause of its astringency.
It is a gutta percha yielding plant. From it Chiclegum is obtained. The sample examined lost 2.33 per cent, when dried at 110° and gave 4.85 per cent, ash ; water dissolved 17, alcohol 60, acetone 62, ether 76, and chloroform 77 per cent, of the drug.
Nothing is present that volatilises with steam. Water extracts a gum mixed with a little proteid substance, which was removed by means of tannic acid ; the gum forms 9 per cent, of the drug ; it is insoluble in alcohol, optically inactive, yields 3.76 per cent, ash, and gives the a-napthol sulphuric acid reaction and the reactions for furfuraldedhyde, No oxydase is present.
The drug was then extracted repeatedly with boiling alcohol ; from the extracts, the alban crystallised on cooling, From the last extracts, v-chiclalban, C15H280, was obtained in small quantity, equal to 0.5 per cent, of the drug ; it is crystalline, and melts at 86-87°. The earlier extracts contained a small quantity, equal to 0.2 per cent, of the drug, of a substance sparingly soluble in alcohol at 50° and melting at 219-221° ; this is a-chiclalban, C24H40O. The bulk of the alban consists of B.-chiclalban, which crystallises in a variety of forms, and seems, when purest to form prismatic crystals or round plates which melt at 158° and have the composition C13H20O. No cinnamic or other acid was obtained by boiling either the drug or B-chiclalban with alcoholic potassium hydroxide ; from the alban, however, a neutral crystalline substance, C24H440, melting at 152-153°, was isolated. By concentrating the alcoholic mother-liquor from the alban and pouring it into very dilute hydrochloric acid, chicla fluavil, C10H20O or C10H13O, was precipitated as a sticky, amorphous substance, which melts at 65-66° when dry ; the yield was 1.5 per cent, of the drug.
The residual drug was dissolved in chloroform and the solution poured into alcohol, when chicla gutta, C10H16 , was precipitated; this was crystallised from ether. From the chloroform-alcoholic mother-liquor, chiclalbanan separated gradually in small amount; after recrystallising from a mixture of alcohol and ether, it melts at 55-57°.
It is noteworthy that, as with gutta-percha and balata, the fluavil has the lowest, the albanan the highest, percentage of carbon, the albans being intermediate. J. Ch. 8. LXXXVIII. pt. 2, p. 685.
